Contracts Commons^™

A Complete View Of The Cathedral: Claims Of Tortious Interference And The Specific Performance Remedy In Mergers And Acquisitions Litigation, Luke Nikas, Paul B. Maslo

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

A bank promises to lend several billion dollars to fund a buyer’s purchase of a target company. The buyer enters into a merger agreement with the target. Thereafter, the economy plummets, and the bank decides that breaching its contract with the buyer will cost less than performing. The buyer seeks specific performance. The target also sues the bank, alleging tortious interference with the merger agreement. Billions of dollars are on the line. This is the reality lived by many investment banks that committed to fund leveraged buyouts during the recent economic downturn. Most of these matters were resolved in private …

General Dynamics Corporation V. United States: An Unnecessary Distortion Of The State Secrets Privilege In The Contracting Context, Adam Spiers

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Innovation In China: Fragmentation, Structured Uncertainty, And Technology Standards, Michael Murphree, Dan Breznitz

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

This Article discusses the history of China’s attempts to develop indigenous technology standards. A case study is presented on China’s attempts to develop digital optical storage media standards, the failure of which we attribute to fragmentation of production and structured uncertainty in China’s economy. Despite the market failures of China’s domestic standards development efforts, we conclude by highlighting some of the appurtenant benefits they produce for Chinese manufacturers.

Revisiting The Leveraged Buyout: Is Constructive Fraud Going Too Far?, 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 429 (2013), Angelo Guisado

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Malpractice In A Changing Profession: The Role Of Contract Principles, Vincent R. Johnson

Cleveland State Law Review

In little more than four decades, the field of American legal ethics has been transformed from an unimportant backwater into a mighty river of legal principles that drives the practice of law in countless respects. Today, this complex matrix of substantive provisions and enforcement mechanisms ensures, to a great extent, that clients are protected from unnecessary harm, that lawyers are safeguarded from improper accusations, and that the provision of legal services is consistent with the public interest. However, the fabric of legal ethics is threatened by a looming transformation of the legal profession. That potential restructuring may revolutionize the delivery …

Visualization: Seeing Contracts For What They Are, And What They Could Become, Thomas Barton, Gerlinde Berger-Walliser, Helena Haapio

Faculty Scholarship

Commercial contract users read their contract documents infrequently, and understand them inadequately. The disincentives may be several: contract language may be too technical and too long; contracts may be organized around ensuring or avoiding legal liability rather than providing guidance toward performing contractual responsibilities; or contracts may rarely include frameworks that would prompt the parties to explore new opportunities. For whatever reason, the neglect by users of contractual documents can lead not only to unpleasant surprises in the performance or enforcement of particular contractual duties, but also to chronic underuse of contracts as potential instruments for planning, innovation, commercial relationship-building …

Consideration For A Price: Using The Contract Price To Interpret Ambiguous Contract Terms, Donald J. Smythe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Innovating Contract Practices: Merging Contract Design With Information Design, Stefania Passera, Helena Haapio, Thomas D. Barton

Faculty Scholarship

The work and expertise of contracts professionals are vital to the operations of modern organizations and the global economy. Strategic planning as well as everyday transactions can be conceived, developed, secured, and implemented through contractual relationships. This accelerating importance and functionality of contracts is not matched, however, by their traditional format or drafting process. Indeed, their mission-critical value is not fully appreciated by decision makers. Many opportunities offered by contracts remain unexplored if contracts are seen merely as legal tools needed only in case a dispute arises. A fresh approach to contracts and contracting is called for.

Drawing on the …

Restrain “Risky Business”: Treat High-Risk Private Security Contractors As Inherently Governmental, Charles Tiefer

All Faculty Scholarship

Should Congress limit private security contractors ("PSCs") in wartime by declaring that high-risk activities are "inherently governmental"? In government contracting law, private contractors are not permitted to conduct activities deemed inherently governmental. As a result, only governmental actors may perform those functions. The role of PSCs in war zones raises a number of questions as to where the line exists, in determining what is, or is not, within this classification. Traditionally, the government draws the line at combat and combat-related activities—only these functions are inherently governmental. This Article argues that the line should instead be drawn at "high-risk" activities, which …

Redefining Offer In Contract Law, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mandating Precontractual Disclosure, Eric H. Franklin

Scholarly Works

Parties negotiating an arm's-length contract are generally not required to disclose facts to one another. Although this default rule is supported by both centuries of common law and freedom of contract principles, courts and legislatures treat certain transactions differently. This is particularly true in circumstances in which the default rule results in an unacceptable harm suffered by a broad group of persons. In such cases, lawmakers have acted to impose precontractual disclosure obligations. These decisions and statutes are largely reactive: A harm is identified in a certain transaction's precontractual period and disclosure is mandated to rectify the harm. These reactive …

Effective Contract Drafting: Indentifying The Building Blocks Of Contracts, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Understanding Financial Derivatives, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives are commonly defined as some variation of the following: a financial instrument whose value is derived from the performance of a secondary source such as an underlying bond, commodity or index. But this definition is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Thus, not surprisingly, derivatives are largely misunderstood, including by many policy makers, regulators and legal analysts. It is important for interested parties such as policy makers to understand derivatives, because the types and uses of derivatives have exploded in the last few decades, and because these financial instruments can provide both social benefits and cause social harms. This Article presents …

Dysfunctional Contracts And The Laws And Practices That Enable Them: An Empirical Analysis, 46 Ind. L. Rev. 797 (2013), Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Eileen Linnabery

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

While many courts refuse to strike down these clauses under the unconscionability test, this Article argues that the results from the Remedies Experiment should lead courts to adopt a different set of tests for ruling on the enforceability of limitation-of-remedy clauses in home purchase contracts. Part I of this Article highlights the relevant results from two empirical studies Professor Stark conducted regarding major problems with the fairness of purchase agreement forms used by residential real estate developers in Illinois. Part I also discusses the lack of home purchaser understanding of key relevant laws and legal documents examined in an empirical …

Contract And Innovation: The Limited Role Of Generalist Courts In The Evolution Of Novel Contractual Forms, Ronald J. Gilson, Charles F. Sabel, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

In developing a contractual response to changes in the economic environment, parties choose the method by which their innovation will be adapted to the particulars of their context. These choices are driven centrally by the thickness of the relevant market – the number of actors who see themselves as facing similar circumstances – and the uncertainty related to that market. In turn, the parties' choice of method will shape how generalist courts can best support the parties' innovation and the novel regimes they envision. In this Article, we argue that contractual innovation does not come to courts incrementally, but instead …

Freedom Of Contracts, Hanoch Dagan, Michael Heller

Faculty Scholarship

“Freedom of contracts” has two components: (1) the familiar freedom to bargain for terms within a contract and (2) the long-neglected freedom to choose from among contract types. Theories built on the first freedom have reached an impasse; attention to the second points toward a long-elusive goal, a liberal and general theory of contract law. This theory is liberal because it develops an appealing conception of contractual autonomy grounded in the actual diversity of contract types. It is general because it explains how contract values – utility, community, and autonomy – properly relate to each other across contract types. Finally, …

Constraints On Private Benefits Of Control: Ex Ante Control Mechanisms Versus Ex Post Transaction Review, Ronald J. Gilson, Alan Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

We ask how to regulate pecuniary private benefit consumption. These benefits can compensate controlling shareholders for monitoring managers and investing effort in implementing projects. Controlling shareholders may consume excessive benefits, however. We argue (a) ex post judicial review of controlled transactions dominates ex ante restrictions on the controlled structures: the latter eliminate efficiencies along with abuses of the controlled company form; (b) controlling shareholders should be permitted to contract with investors over private benefit levels. Both work with better courts. Hence, we recommend creating a European-level corporate court, whose jurisdiction parties can invoke by contract.

A Presumptively Better Approach To Arbitrability, John A. E. Pottow, Jacob Brege, Tara J. Hawley

Articles

One of the most complex problems in the arbitration field is the question of who decides disputes over the scope of an arbitrator's purported authority. Courts in Canada and the United States have taken different approaches to this fundamental question of "arbitrability" that necessarily arises when one party disputes the contractual validity of the underlying "container" contract carrying the arbitration clause. If arbitration is a creature of contract, and contract is a product of consensual agreement, then any dispute that impugns the underlying consent of the parties to the container contract implicates the arbitration agreement itself (i.e., no contract, no …

Forest Carbon (Redd+), Repairing International Trust, And Reciprocal Contractual Sovereignty, David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Efficacy Of The Negative Injunction In Breach Of Entertainment Contracts, 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 409 (2013), Eliot Axelrod

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Lesson On Some Limits Of Economic Analysis: Schwartz And Scott On Contract Interpretation, Steven J. Burton

Indiana Law Journal

Contract interpretation has been a hot topic of scholarly debate since 2003, when Professors Alan Schwartz of Yale and Robert E. Scott of Columbia published their provocative article, Contract Theory and the Limits of Contract Law, much of which develops an efficiency theory of contract interpretation. In 2010, they published a restatement of this theory and reply to critics, which has not yet drawn much commentary. This Article suggests that, even as restated, their theory offers an object lesson on some limits of economic analyses of the law. The Article assumes that their central argument is mathematically and economically impeccable. …

Solidifying Arkansas's Liquidated Damage Law After S.O.G.-San-Ore-Gardner V. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co.: It's Not All Water Under The Bridge, David C. Jung

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

The construction of the Benzal Bridge over the White River in rural Arkansas brought about years of litigation between Missouri Pacific Railroad Company and contractor San Ore-Gardner, the crux of which was whether the liquidated damages provision in the parties' contract was enforceable. The liquidated damages provision at issue provided that San Ore-Gardner would be liable to Missouri Pacific Railroad Company for damages in the amount of $600 per day if performance of the contract was not completed within the specified time period. Although Missouri Pacific Railroad Company did contribute to the over two year delay in completion of the …

Contract Stories: Importance Of The Contextual Approach To Law, Larry A. Dimatteo

UF Law Faculty Publications

How law is taught is at the center of the debate over the need to change legal education to better prepare students for a difficult and changing marketplace for legal services. This Article analyzes the benefits of using “stories” to teach law. The stories to be discussed relate to contract law: this Article asks whether they can be used to improve the method and content of teaching law. The ruminations offered on teaching contract law, however, are also relevant to teaching other core, first-year law courses.

Consumer Financial Services Arbitration: What Does The Future Hold After Concepcion?, Alan S. Kaplinsky, Mark J. Levin

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

The Dilemma Of Public–Private Partnerships As A Vehicle For The Provision Of Regional Transport Infrastructure Development In Africa, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

With regional economic integration (REI) as a major strategy for development, the African continent hosts a plethora of regional economic communities of varying ambition longevity and success. While in the 1970s, political-economic ideas built mainly on the “developmental state” informed the design of most of these agreements, the change in economic thought in the 1980s which ushered in the “neoliberal turn” has since influenced the design of most REI schemes in Africa, including the New Partnership for African Development. However, among other factors, inadequate transport infrastructure linking regions poses a major impediment to regional trade and development in Africa. The …

Jacques De Werra (Ed.), Research Handbook On Intellectual Property Licensing, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In the laws of most jurisdictions in the world, IP licenses are an unnamed form of contract, most often of a hybride nature, for which no specific legal framework exists, save for rare exceptions. As a result, the formation, content and interpretation of IP licences call for the application of relevant norms from numerous other fields of the law, such as contract law, property law, commercial law, consumer law etc. Despite efforts of harmonisation at the international and regional levels, these related areas of the law remain to a large extent nationally determined, influenced by the legal tradition of each …

Digital Content Contracts For Consumers, Marco Loos, Chantal Mak, Lucie Guibault, Lodewijk Pessers, Natali Helberger

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The application of consumer law to digital content contracts encounters a number of obstacles. Some of these are rather typical for digital content markets, e.g., the legal consequences of the classification of digital content as “goods” or “services”, and more importantly, the absence of general benchmarks to evaluate the conformity of digital content. Other problems, such as the limited usefulness of consumer information and the position of underage consumers, are not as such reserved to digital consumers, but they are amplified in the digital content markets. Moreover, particular attention is paid to the complex relationship between copyright law and consumer …

A Precedent Built On Sand: Norcon V. Niagra Mohawk, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Under the common law, a contracting party could only demand assurance of performance if the other party was insolvent. If a party had reasonable grounds for insecurity, the UCC Section 2-609 allowed it to demand adequate assurance even if the counterparty were solvent. The Restatement (Second) adopted the same rule for non-goods. In NorCon v. Niagara Mohawk the New York court extended the adequate assurance doctrine for some non-goods contracts. Although the decision seems to imply that there is some relation between the NorCon facts and its conclusion as to the law, there is none. Relying primarily on material available …

A Presumptively Better Approach To Arbitrability, John A. E. Pottow, Jacob Brege, Tara J. Hawley

Law & Economics Working Papers

One of the most complex problems in the arbitration field is the question of who decides disputes over the scope of an arbitrator’s purported authority. Courts in Canada and the United States have taken different approaches to this fundamental question of “arbitrability” that necessarily arises when one party disputes the contractual validity of the underlying “container” contract carrying the arbitration clause. If arbitration is a creature of contract, and contract is a product of consensual agreement, then any dispute that impugns the underlying consent of the parties to the container contract implicates the arbitration agreement itself (i.e., no contract, no …

Tzedek Tzedek Tirdofi: How Female Religious Court Advocates Can Mitigate A Lack Of Judicial Review Of The American Beth Din System, Raquel J. Greenberg

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.