Contracts Commons^™

Privacy Losses As Wrongful Gains, Bernard Chao

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Perhaps nowhere has the pace of technology placed more pressure on the law than in the area of data privacy. Huge data breaches fill our headlines. Companies often violate their own privacy policies by selling customer data, or by using the information in ways that fall outside their policy. Yet, even when there is indisputable misconduct, the law generally does not hold these companies accountable. That is because traditional legal claims are poorly suited for handling privacy losses.

Contract claims fail when privacy policies are not considered contractual obligations. Misrepresentation claims cannot succeed when customers never read and rely on …

A Paradigm Shift In Comparative Institutional Governance: The Role Of Contract In Business Relationships And Cost/Benefit Analysis, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Faculty Publications

Stewart Macaulay’s research on the ways that Wisconsin manufacturers transact debunked the centrality of contract law by revealing a disinclination to consult contract documents or invoke legal sanctions. This research revolutionized contracts scholarship, highlighting that a contract, instead of being viewed as an inevitable necessity of exchange, should be viewed as one of many institutions that might be available to parties as a solution to problems and a method for facilitating exchange. Macaulay’s research further revealed that the cost of legal sanctions, the importance of maintaining business relationships, and the desire for informal solutions actually push parties to conclude that …

The Domains Of Loyalty: Relationships Between Fiduciary Obligation And Intrinsic Motivation, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

Recent scholarly inquiry into fiduciary law predominantly focuses on whether the subject is a coherent field and not a piecemeal assortment of doctrinal detail. This Article looks to the future and to relationships between the formal domain of fiduciary law and other factors that shape conduct. These include intrinsic motivation, markets for professional services, and forces like the operation of reputation. The Article demonstrates that looking across domains, from the legal to the extralegal, casts in sharp relief the reasons why fiduciary law is distinctive. These stem from the specific qualities of relationships to which fiduciary law applies, as well …

The Cost Of Guilty Breach: Willful Breach In M&A Contracts, Theresa Arnold, Amanda Dixon, Madison Whalen Sherrill, Hadar Tanne, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional framework of United States private law that every first-year student learns is that contracts and torts are different realms—contracts is the realm of strict liability and torts of fault. Contracts, we learn from the writings of Justice Holmes and Judge Posner, are best viewed as options; they give parties the option to perform or pay damages. The question we ask is whether, in the real world, that is indeed how contracting parties view things. Using a dataset made up of one thousand mergers and acquisitions (M&A) contracts and thirty in-depth interviews with M&A lawyers, we find that there …

Sneak In Contracts, Shmuel I. Becher, Uri Benoliel

Georgia Law Review

Consumer contracts are a pervasive legal tool that govern
many of our daily activities. Yet, consumer contracts are
routinely modified by businesses after customers accept them.
Common modifications include, for example, a change in fees,
alteration of a dispute resolution clause, or revision to the firm’s
privacy policy. In fact, unilateral modifications can affect
virtually every aspect of a contract.
While the literature widely discusses the problem of ex ante
consent to consumer contracts, it does not adequately address
the problem of ex post consent to unilateral modifications. But
the practice of unilateral changes to consumer form contracts
comes with …

A Feminist Economic Perspective On Contract Law: Promissory Estoppel As An Example, Orit Gan

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Economic analysis is a highly influential theoretical approach to contract law. At the same time, feminist analysis of contract law offers an important critical approach to the field. However, feminist economics, a prominent alternative approach to mainstream neo-classical economics drawing from both economic theory and feminist theory, has only been applied scarcely and sporadically to contract law. This Article seeks to bridge this gap and to apply the key features of feminist economics to an analysis of the doctrine of promissory estoppel. This Article uses promissory estoppel as an example to demonstrate a feminist economic analysis of contract law.

The Efficient Breach Theory In International Investment Law, Sangwani Patrick Ng’Ambi

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

When a State unilaterally abrogates its contractual obligations, it is under a duty to compensate the investor. The aim of the compensation regime under International Investment Law is to restore the investor to a position he or she would have been in had the breach not taken place. Thus, the award of compensation should not only include sunk costs (damnum emergens) but also lost future profits (lucrum cessans).

In this article it is argued that the rules relating to compensation promote efficiency, as per the ‘efficient breach theory’ because they dissuade governments from unilaterally abrogating concession agreements, unless they can …

Marissa Jackson Sow’S “Whiteness As Contract”, Marissa Jackson Sow

Seattle University Law Review

Marissa Jackson Sow’s “Whiteness as Contract.”

Closing Remarks, Dontay Proctor-Mills

Seattle University Law Review

Closing Remarks.

The Alarming Legality Of Security Manipulation Through Shareholder Proposals, Artem M. Joukov, Samantha M. Caspar

Seattle University Law Review

Shareholder proposals attract attention from scholars in finance and economics because they present an opportunity to study both quasidemocratic decision-making at the corporate level and the impact of this decision-making on firm outcomes. These studies capture the effect of various proposals but rarely address whether regulations should allow many of them in the first place due to the possibility of stock price manipulation. Recent changes to shareholder proposal rules, adopted in September 2020, sought to address the potential for exploitation that some proposals create (but ultimately failed to do so). This Article shows the potential for apparently legal stock price …

The Future Of The Agricultural Industry – Is Blockchain A New Beginning?, Ryan Bisel

Seattle University Law Review

As we advance into a digital era, we begin to depend on technological innovations to rapidly help develop and update processes and methods within different industries. Blockchain technology—popularized by cryptocurrency—is slowly making its debut in the agricultural supply chain. Implementing a blockchain requirement for suppliers would be beneficial because it would allow agricultural suppliers and distributors to track their products in a more efficient manner. However, there are four potential legal issues that are foreseeable: (1) preemption, (2) overlapping regulatory authority, (3) applying current legal rules to new technology, and (4) contracting. This Note will specifically focus on issues of …

Corporate Entanglement With Religion And The Suppression Of Expression, Ronald J. Colombo

Seattle University Law Review

The power and ability of corporations to assert their First Amendment rights to the detriment of others remains both a controversial and unresolved issue. Adverting to relevant strands of existing jurisprudence and certain constitutionally relevant factors, this Article suggests a solution. The path turns upon the recognition that whereas some corporations are appropriately categorized as rights-bearing entities (akin to associations), others are more appropriately categorized as “entities against which the rights of individuals can be asserted.” Legislation, in the form of the draft “CENSOR” Act, is provided as a means by which to implement this categorization. What hopefully emerges is …

New Kid On The Block: An Introduction To The Hague Rules On Business And Human Rights Arbitration, Bhavya Mahajan

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In the medieval European states, Lex Mercatoria, literally "Merchant Law," was a prevalent custom, which developed out of the norms and needs of the market and influenced the transborder trade practices among merchants. For redressal of trade-related disputes, arbitration was the popular method and the merchants elected their own judges in the courts of arbitration that they established. These courts developed a reputation for swift resolution of disputes using high moral standards. Non-compliance with practiced norms, or with the arbitral decisions of the courts, would solidify pariah status for the defaulting merchant in the trading community. Gradually, with the …

Nfts And The Art World - What's Real, And What's Not, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article explores the reality and mythology of NFTs in art law and in the art world by unpacking six myths, misconceptions, and poorly understood truths about NFTs that prevent persons, and particularly art law lawyers, from understanding the role NFTs are playing and could play in the art world and beyond. The Article discusses the legal and financial attributes and potentialities of NFTs for artists, galleries, dealers, investors, museums, and, most especially, for lawyers who advise the players in the art world. The six myths or misconceptions are:

-Myth 1: NFTs are artworks.

-Myth 2: NFTs create a false …

Uncommon Issues With Industrial Hemp Production Contracts, Rusty W. Rumley, Scout Snowden

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Do Algorithms Dream Of Mistaken Contracts? Supreme Court Case Summary: Quoine Pte Ltd V B2c2 Ltd, Lokman Bin Mohamed Rafi Hakim

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Can an agreement which is formed purely through the operation of algorithms be considered a binding contract? If so, can such a contract be unilaterally cancelled because of a mistake, where such mistake resulted in trades being concluded at 250 times the market rate? This was the question before the Court of Appeal (“CA”) in the case of Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd [2020] SGCA(I) 2.

The Limits To Freedom To Contract: Supreme Court Case Summary: Leiman, Ricardo V Noble Resources Ltd, Jia Xin Tan

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

In line with the principle of freedom to contract, the courts will give effect to the intention of the parties in creating their contract, and also hold them to their duty to perform their primary obligations under such contract. However, where the contracting parties agree to vest certain decision-making powers to a specific (non-judicial) entity, to what extent may a court review the exercise of powers by such entity?

The Deans' Roundtable, Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Dean Danielle Conway, Dean Tamara Lawson, Dean Mario Barnes, Dean L. Song Richardson

Seattle University Law Review

The Deans' Roundtable.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents.

W(H)Ither Judgment, Elias Leake Quinn

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Textualists complain that loose rules of statutory interpretation inject uncertainty and inconsistency into judicial resolutions of statutory ambiguity. But by employing an incomplete theory of meaning, pure textualists fail to shore up their decisions. And by disparaging the judgement necessary to navigate complex questions of meaning, they erode trust in the judicial process—the very foundation of the rule of law.