Category Archives: Contract
Luna, Ballesteros and Dorantes, ‘Development of a Smart Contract for the Transfer of Copyrights in an Artwork Linked to an NFT’
ABSTRACT Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are transforming the commercialisation of digital art by establishing unique blockchain identifiers that ensure authenticity and certify subsequent transactions. However, the transfer of control over an NFT does not automatically include the transfer of the associated copyrights, thereby creating legal uncertainty as to what rights are actually acquired. This interdisciplinary project […]
Marc Moore, ‘Contract interpretation and the employment relation: from commercial to industrial common sense?’
ABSTRACT The recent (2024) Supreme Court decision in Tesco Stores Ltd v Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has attracted interest from across the legal community. For labour lawyers, the case provides a valuable opportunity to interrogate the legality of the controversial ‘fire and rehire’ practices that have become a constant of the industrial […]
Jing and Zhu, ‘A comparative analysis of the insurer’s pre-contractual duty of utmost good faith’
ABSTRACT This article comparatively analyses insurer’s pre-contractual duty of utmost good faith in English law and in some other common law jurisdictions (Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) and civil law jurisdictions (China and Germany). At common law, the insurer has a pre-contractual duty to disclose facts known to it which are material to: […]
Krish Maharaj, ‘When Should Breach of Good Faith Beget Punitive Damages?’
ABSTRACT This article highlights a recent trend towards claimants seeking, and courts awarding, punitive damages in contract cases predicated on a breach of contract in conjunction with an ‘independent actionable wrong’ – a requirement since the Supreme Court’s decision in Whiten v Pilot Insurance – in the form of a breach of the duty of […]
‘Contract Law: Past, Present and Future’: University College London, 12 June 2026
The first edition of Chitty on Contracts was published in 1826. To mark its 200th anniversary, the Private Law Group at University College London is hosting a one-day conference on Friday 12 June 2026. There will be papers on Chitty’s place in legal history, on current issues in contract law and on developments that may […]
Baffi and Parisi, ‘The Double Edge of Freedom of Contract’
ABSTRACT Standard economic reasoning suggests that expanding an individual’s choice set cannot reduce welfare because additional options may always be ignored. This intuition underlies the traditional economic justification for freedom of contract. This paper shows that the monotonic relationship between choice and welfare may break down in bargaining environments characterized by asymmetric bilateral monopoly and […]
Jonathan Ainslie, ‘The Irrevocability of Jus Quaesitum Tertio: Stair and the Roman-Dutch Law’
ABSTRACT Prior to the enactment of the Contract (Third Party Rights) (Scotland) Act 2017, Scots law permitted third parties to derive an enforceable benefit from a contract via a jus quaesitum tertio which was irrevocable from its creation. This article examines the historical reasons for the irrevocability requirement, focusing on the formulation of jus quaesitum […]
Jonathan Saunders, ‘A Normative and Pragmatic Argument for Textualism and Stability within the Law on Contractual Interpretation: a Critique of Sara and Hossein v Blacks [2023] UKSC 2′
ABSTRACT This article comments on the development of the case law within the sphere of contractual interpretation. It presents a normative argument for a more literalist approach that echoes Lord Neuberger’s restatement of the law in Arnold v Britton. The article uses, as a case study, the Supreme Court’s most recent judgment on contractual interpretation […]
von Hein, Vuattoux-Bock and Kock, ‘The CISG and European sales law: Impulses for the notion of consumer and the sale of digital goods’
ABSTRACT This article examines the essential role of a dynamic interpretation of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) amid the challenges of digitalization and globalization. Notwithstanding the principle of an autonomous interpretation of the CISG, this comparative article analyses whether lessons from recent European legislative developments – that […]
Gerhard Wagner, ‘Procedural Agreements: A Normative Framework’
ABSTRACT The paper addresses the essential questions of agreements on questions of procedure, ie their classification as procedural or substantive and their admissibility under the applicable law of civil procedure. Procedural agreements touch upon the public interest, challenge the self-conception of public courts and raise concerns with a view to the protection of weaker parties. […]