Creating markets in no-trust environments: The law and economics of smart contracts

Smart contracts, self-executing agreements based on blockchain technology, have the capacity to create trust in what we term no-trust contracting environments. We argue that using them in such environments is the path to unleash the full potential of smart contracts. Compared to the contract enforcement mechanisms characterized by traditional contract law or relational contracts, smart contracts can offer a superior solution for facilitating trade.Several lawyers and economists have debated whether smart contracts might offer the prospect of cheaper, faster and better transactions. As we discuss below, contract law scholars caution that they neither replicate the relational context essential for the day-to-day practice of contracting nor offer a superior solution to problems addressed by traditional contract law, such as contract validity and legality. We clarify and systematize the current thinking on the legal nature and reliability of smart contracts, and address the concerns of contract law scholars. While doing that, we suggest a step forward in characterizing contracting environments, contract enforcement mechanisms and the trust relationship underlying contracts.     

The Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation & Proportionality: A Public Law Principle Adopted into the Private Law of Employment

This article examines the possible adoption of the public law principles of ‘legitimate expectation’ and the standard of ‘proportionality’ as the appropriate and cohesive legal approach to voluntary promises that are normally found in ostensibly non-contractual documents. The article argues that, allowing a further development into the principle of legitimate expectation, which has already been adopted in employment relations as a further development of the implied duty of trust and confidence, could enhance the courts’ approach to the issue of voluntary promises and avoid the unsatisfactory contractual solution that appears to produce inconsistent results. Giving particular consideration to the courts’ application of the proportionality test, thereby recognises an employee’s hierarchy of interests, when seeking to justify an employer’s decision, this article assesses how the influence of the proportionality standard can, and should, offer a more satisfactory solution when applied to resolving disputes.     

Where the Action Is: Macro and Micro Justice in Contract Law

In contemporary private law theory the relationship between ‘macro’ theories of distributive justice and the ‘micro’ site of interpersonal transactions remains under-explored. In this paper, I draw on the ‘macro’ theory of justice articulated by John Rawls and offer an account of ‘micro contractual justice’ that helps us understand how the micro domains of contracting introduce particular relational constraints on the infusion of distributive considerations into contract law, resulting in constrained conception of ‘relational Rawlsianism’ operating in contractual domains. My framework provides a bridge between the macro and micro, helping us understand how they are in various senses separate yet interlocking, and also provides a ‘third way’ between all or nothing positions on the place of distributive justice in contract.     

民法中的保护义务——以其具体适用为中心

民法中的保护义务以人身、财产等固有利益的维护为职志，它与侵权行为法具有相同的功能，却是在合同法领域通过判例学说发展起来的。与约定或法定的义务不同，保护义务以不确定性为特征。为了保证司法实践中适用保护义务的正当性，应当界定其意义，明确其前提，厘定其界限，讨论其标准，发展其内涵，确立适用保护义务的一般原则或规则，减少法官的随意性，增强判决的可预见性和统一性。     

Against Lumley v Gye

The Lumley v Gye tort of inducing a breach of contract is the foundation of strike law, although it also has a wider commercial role. We should reject the view that Lumley liability follows automatically from general contractual liability. Contract law is optional. Imposing its obligations on unwilling parties requires special justification. We should also be sceptical about the claim that Lumley liability increases confidence that contracts will be enforced. Such scepticism should be enhanced by parallels between Lumley liability and restitutionary damages for breach of contract. Some Lumley cases illustrate the point that 'efficient breach of contract' has a moral core, not just an economic core. For example, it can sometimes be unreasonable and unjust for parties to insist on precise contractual performance when they know that circumstances have changed in ways that the contract did not anticipate. For all these reasons the justification defence to Lumley should be widened.     

Good Faith and the Ubiquity of the ‘Relational’ Contract

The judgment of Leggatt J in Yam Seng Pte Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd shows the common belief that the English law of contract does not have a doctrine of good faith to be mistaken. That law does not have a general principle of good faith, but its doctrine of good faith, articulated through numerous specific duties, is more suitable for the interpretation of contracts according to the intentions of the parties than a general principle which invites the imposition of exogenous standards. That Yam Seng involved a relational contract does not mean that paternalistic exogenous standards should be imposed. It means that the good faith obligations essential even to a commercial contract of this sort must be implied in order to give efficacy to the fundamentally co‐operative contractual relationship.     

破解“合同僵局”的新路径:限制权利滥用与合理信赖保护的统一

“合同僵局”的内涵及定位等基本问题模糊不清,导致法律适用中当事人合法利益难以得到有效保护,需要澄清。“合同僵局”本质是债权人双重主体身份的对立,此时债权人既是不行使单方解除权权利滥用的主体,又是合理信赖落空处于不利境地的主体。据此,建议从“合同僵局”本质来构建可行的合同拘束力逃逸机制:一方面应类型化交易中的权利滥用行为,依据伪“合同僵局”、双方型“合同僵局”以及涉他型“合同僵局”三种类型,明晰《民法典》第580条第2款司法解除的行使条件,避免法院与仲裁机构裁量的恣意;另一方面应限缩《民法典》第580条第2款的适用范围,赋予债权人充分赔偿并引入再交涉义务,系统性维护当事人的合理信赖。     

契约理念引入行政法的背景分析——基础与条件

市场经济和市场经济下的行政机关与公民的关系 ,既是行政法和契约的基础 ,也构成了二者结合的基础 ;民主为契约理念在行政法中的确立奠定了观念与制度的基础 ,也正是民主孕育着行政法的契约精神 ,而行政职能的转变及多元化行政的出现 ,为契约在行政法中的应用提供了广阔的空间 ;法治理念与契约理念有着异曲同工之妙 ,二者互为基础 ;立法对契约的规定与行政的实际运作 ,表明了契约理念的确立已具有现实的可行与必要。契约理念确立的条件 ,可从行政、行政相对人、行政关系中的利益及契约与依法行政的结合等方面来解读 :行政的开放性与文化支撑性、行政相对人的独立性和参与性、行政关系中不同利益的可交换性、契约与依法行政的相融性。     

《合同法》预期违约阻却机制之建构评析

预期违约成立后,可因法定事由而发生违约属性的消解,从而构成预期违约的违约阻却。我国《合同法》在经由不安抗辩权机制发生的特殊预期违约制度中设定了预期违约阻却机制,其机制设定模式缺乏严谨,体系亦欠完备,有待补充与完善。     

劳资契约安排的制度逻辑——无固定期限劳动合同的法律经济学重读

无固定期限劳动合同引发了任何规则建构都必须依循其内在制度逻辑这一普适性的法理学命题。基于法律经济学的分析视角,无论是《劳动合同法》还是配套的《实施条例》,无固定期限劳动合同皆无法保护员工的职业稳定权,反而损害了同样值得珍视的就业权,引发了一系列影响就业数量、就业质量的利益再分配效应。缘于人力资本在监督、计量上的技术难度,企业无法就员工是否"不能胜任工作"等常规合同解除条件给出满足可观察、可检验要件的客观证据,无法满足司法治理机制的"外部视角"对于证据可观察、可检验的刚性约束,《劳动合同法》赋予企业的合同解除抗辩权不具有司法操作意义。在劳动力结构性过剩的背景下,以提升劳动者职业技能、降低其可替代性来提高企业解除劳资契约关系的退出成本,应当是更有助于激励企业保持稳定的劳资契约关系、节省执法成本的可行进路。     

Better than Fuller: A Two Interests Model of Remedies for Breach of Contract

The attempt to combine the contractual interests properly so‐called with the restitution interest in the Fuller and Purdue three interests model of remedies for breach of contract is ineradicably incoherent. Stimulated by reflection on contemporary restitution doctrine's understanding of the quasi‐contractual remedies of recovery and quantum meruit, this paper argues that the complete elimination from the law of contract of the restitution interest, which incorporates those remedies into the three interests model, would improve both the coherence of the model of contractual interests and the substantive law of remedies for breach.     

高校毕业生就业中的知情权保护研究

《劳动合同法》首次明确了在合同订立阶段劳动者的知情权和用人单位的如实告知义务。但从现实情况来看,高校毕业生的知情权仍然受到用人单位的侵犯。因此,保护他们的知情权,对于改变劳动力双方信息不对称的局面,促进劳动就业权的实现和构建和谐稳定的劳动关系具有积极的意义。高校毕业生应通过《劳动合同法》等劳动法律的学习,增强自我维权意识,通过社会和法律救济手段切实保护他们在就业中的知情权。     

Concurrent Duties

This paper offers an account of concurrent liability, and in particular the existence of, and interaction between, concurrent contractual and non‐contractual duties. It argues for five essential propositions: (1) a defendant can owe simultaneous private law duties towards a claimant, the content of which overlaps in whole or in part; (2) cases of concurrent liability in contract and negligence involve independent duties, which are concurrent but not coextensive; (3) the doctrine of concurrent liability is conceptually distinct from the rule that the claimant must elect between inconsistent remedies; (4) if the defendant commits a wrong in breach of more than one duty, the claimant has a prima facie choice to sue for any of those breaches; and (5) the content of one any duty might affect the content of the other. The last of these principles, it is argued, provide an explanation for the recent decisions in Wellesley Partners v Withers and AIB v Mark Redler.     

Restitutionary Remedies in the Contractual Context

Contracting parties sometimes have a claim to recover money paid in advance, or for reasonable payment for work done under the contract, commonly described as restitutionary remedies. This claim arising out of a contract is nowadays generally regarded as a non‐contractual, unjust enrichment claim governed by the modern law of unjust enrichment, by contrast with a contractual claim for damages or specific performance. The article argues that the claim is contractual, and that this is relevant to determining when it should be available and what the measure of recovery should be. In particular, it is argued that this follows from the proper understanding of the form of agreement made by contracting parties. The argument involves discussion of doctrinal categories such as contract and unjust enrichment, the relationship between primary and remedial rights in contract, the nature of contractual agreement, and the protection of reliance in contract.     

我国合同拘束力理论的重构

围绕合同债权的拘束力问题，存在着债权-债务构成与合同构成两种不同的理论模式。我国合同法在总体上选择了合同构成。但由于理论上的准备不足，无论立法者还是解释者都没有清晰地意识到上述两种构成的存在和意义，而是误用了早已扭曲变形的严格责任体系和过错责任体系作为理论工具，导致合同法在立法和解释上都夹杂了很多债权-债务构成的成分，不仅造成了严重的体系矛盾，而且在一定范围内引发了法律效果的偏差。这些矛盾和偏差需要通过用纯粹的合同构成对现行的合同拘束力理论进行重构方能化解和矫正。     

The Implied Duty of Mutual Trust and Confidence: An Emerging Overarching Principle?

There is an argument in academic circles that the implied dutyof mutual trust and confidence will evolve to form an all-embracingsuper-principle under which each of the more ‘traditional’implied duties will rest, including the employer’s impliedduty to exercise reasonable care for the welfare and well beingof the employee. The theme of this article is that, on balance,there is no evidence for the emergence of the implied duty ofmutual trust and confidence as a super-principle. If anything,the recent trends in the case law emphasise the distinctivenessof the employer’s duties to exercise reasonable care andtrust and confidence. The article’s aim was to demonstratethat both duties are separate, free-standing duties, sittingon an equal plane in terms of importance. To rationalise one,or all of the implied duties (i.e. the duty to exercise reasonablecare and/or all of the other ‘traditional duties’),as one of the means by which the super-principle of trust andconfidence is, or may be expressed, is to a large extent, aspirational.     

雇佣关系调整的法律分界——民法与劳动法调整雇佣类合同关系的制度与理念

《合同法》起草时曾设定一类有名合同——雇佣合同,但雇佣合同最终没有体现在《合同法》中,近年来民法学界开始涉及雇佣合同问题。《劳动法》调整的劳动合同实质上也是一种雇佣合同,民法与劳动法调整雇佣关系有着各自相应的区界。本文对传统雇佣契约与劳动合同之间存在的差异进行了分析,指出民法与劳动法所调整的雇佣关系是一种互补关系,两者在调整雇佣类社会关系中发挥着不可替代的功能。     

论公有公共设施管理人的安全保障义务

随着现代社会公有公共设施越来越多,社会公众因此而受到的损害也日渐增多,公有公共设施管理人成为被告,要求其承担责任的情况也经常出现。公有公共设施安全保障义务的理论基础是信赖关系而非合同关系,管理人义务来源主要有法律规定和社会活动安全注意义务,义务的界限是管理人尽到了合理注意、损害与管理义务无近因关系以及在现有技术条件下危险能够控制。     

To Wonderland Through the Looking-glass: Conceiving a Critical Legal Argument for Contractual Justice in the South African Law of Contract †

The aim of this paper is to identify the possible substructure (looking glass/es) of a critical legal argument for contractual justice (Wonderland) in the South African law of contract. South African contract law still fails, ten years after the constitutional transformation, to reflect the constitutional ideals of freedom, equality and human dignity in an acceptable manner. I argue that this disposition places a question mark over the legitimacy of contract law and marginalizes opportunities for the social change envisaged by the Constitution. The paper explores Duncan Kennedy’s Form and Substance-argument and indicates that the reluctance to accommodate these values may be attributable to the fact that the majority of role-players position themselves on the individualism/rules side of Kennedy’s continuum – a paradigm that perceives the law of contract as a body of positivistic rules to be applied neutrally and regardless of the social or socio-economic distortions its application may generate. In an attempt to move away from this traditional approach, the privileged paradigm is criticised. A typical CLS-approach is followed which employs sociology, psychological jurisprudence and game theory to criticise the law from outside the restrictive realms of law itself. Simultaneously, I attempt to illuminate the argument for a shift (step through the looking glass) to another paradigm. I conclude that our judiciary finds itself in a position similar to that of Plato’s prisoners in the cave and will not reach the point where they apply relevant (constitutional) values directly to contractual disputes. The State is thus responsible for infusing contract law with contractual justice, by implementing legislation to this effect in order to limit the hegemonic consequences of the judiciary’s obsession with freedom of contract and utopian rules, which fail in reality to further the ideal of justice. Paper presented at the Critical Legal Conference, 4 September 2004, London, UK. This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Judge of Appeal, Mr. Justice P.J. Olivier. The paper is based on research conducted for the thesis in partial fulfilment of the degree LLD in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria under the title ‘A critical legal argument for contractual justice in the South African law of contract.’ The degree supervisor is Professor Karin van Marle in the Department of Legal History, Comparative Law and Jurisprudence. The author wishes to thank the following persons for valuable deliberations and input: Karin van Marle, Graham Bradfield and Anashri Pillay. In addition, the author wishes to acknowledge and thank the University of Cape Town for financially supporting this research. †Paper presented at the Critical Legal Conference, 4 September 2004, London, UK. This paper is dedicated to the memory of the late Judge of Appeal, Mr. Justice P.J. Olivier. The paper is based on research conducted for the thesis in partial fulfilment of the degree LLD in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria under the title ‘A critical legal argument for contractual justice in the South African law of contract.’ The degree supervisor is Professor Karin van Marle in the Department of Legal History, Comparative Law and Jurisprudence. The author wishes to thank the following persons for valuable deliberations and input: Karin van Marle, Graham Bradfield and Anashri Pillay. In addition, the author wishes to acknowledge and thank the University of Cape Town for financially supporting this research. apply relevant (constitutional) values directly to contractual disputes. The State is thus responsible for infusing contract law with contractual justice, by implementing legislation to this effect in order to limit the hegemonic consequences of the judiciary’s obsession with freedom of contract and utopian rules, which fail in reality to further the ideal of justice.