Private Law Theory

… The purpose of the present article is to clarify the law on judicial intervention in salvage contracts on the ground of an unjust price and to highlight the practical and theoretical implications which flow from such a clarification. It is divided into a further six sections. Section II examines the distinctive origins of salvage contracts. Section III contends that judicial intervention on the ground of an unjustly high price is, generally, misunderstood: nothing else besides an unjust price matters. The claim in section IV is that courts can also intervene in salvage contracts on the ground of an unjustly low price thus demonstrating, in combination with the third section, that there is a single rule containing two halves. Section V examines existing theories of contract law in light of this rule, as clarified in the preceding two sections, and shows that its existence is best justified and explained by the just price theory. Section VI shows that the rule on unjust prices in salvage contracts was one of the principal causes of the rise of standard form salvage contracts and that the latter are the reason for which all the leading cases on this point are stuck in the 19th century. The final section shows why the categorisation of this rule as one of admiralty law only or as one which falls within contract law too is not inconsequential …

€ (Westlaw)

Ciara Kennefick, ‘The just price in salvage contracts’ (2025) 141 Law Quarterly Review (Apr) 203-224.