The New French Law of Contract

Abstract

The article analyses the recent reform of contract law in France. The section of the Civil Code on the law of contract was amended and restructured in its entirety last year. The revised section came into force on 1 October 2016. The article considers its main innovations and compares them with the corresponding principles of English law and some contract law international instruments, mainly the UNIDROIT Principles and the Principles of European Contract Law. The article also assesses whether the new provisions achieve their stated aim of rendering French contract law more accessible, predictable, influential abroad and commercially attractive.

Học thuyết vi phạm hợp đồng trước hạn thực hiện nghĩa vụ ở hệ thống pháp luật Civil Law

“…Đây là một quy định khá tương tự vi phạm trước thời hạn, tuy nhiên biện pháp khắc phục cho trường hợp ngoại lệ này chỉ dừng lại ở tạm ngừng thực hiện nghĩa vụ. Sự vắng mặt của các quy định về vi phạm hợp đồng trước thời hạn là một điều đáng ngạc nhiên, bởi vì các dự án cải cách pháp luật trước đó đã ủng hộ biện pháp chấm dứt hợp đồng đối với những hành vi vi phạm được dự báo trước thời hạn thực hiện nghĩa vụ 5 .…”

Economic Analysis of The Trade Contracts: An Economic Perspective

“…General lines such as electricity, water, and gas prompted the legislator to draw general lines for contractors of this type of contract, known as contracts of submission in the Iraqi civil law. The French legislator included the contracts of compliance for the first time in the amendment of the French Civil Code of 2016 in Article 1110 if there is a difference between bargaining contracts and contracts of submission (Rowan, 2017). French jurisprudence has traditionally called this accession contract because the acceptor and His consent were present (Kuzmina & Baculin, 2019).…”

“…Efforts are made to maximize these advantages and expand them in methods and mean not permitted by law, leading to the invalidation of this legislation. The French Civil Code stipulated that every person is free to contract or not to contract, choose his counterpart in the contractual process, and determine the content and form of the contract within limits established by law (Rowan, 2017). The contractual freedom does not allow derogation from the rules linked to the public order.…”

Depriving the Debtor’s Essential Obligation of its Substance and its Remedies under the Provisions of Article 1170 of the French Civil Code

“…7 As such, most French jurists support the new text (Article 1170) in spite of the present difficulties in its application. 8 However, nevertheless, other jurists criticise it severely, on the basis that the French court of cassation's case law was aimed at extending the legal protection against arbitrary terms to include professionals who were excluded from the scope of consumer protection law; 9 however, as long as the NFCC provides the intended protection to professionals from arbitrary terms in contracts of adhesion under Article 1171, 10 there is no need for enacting Article 1170 of the NFCC.…”

“…The Reform of French Contract Law and of the General Rules on Obligations: The Civil Code Faces the Challenges of the Market. Supra note, p 246.29 Rowan, S. (2017). The New French Law of Contract.…”