Browsing by Subject "Contract Law"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Constitutionalism, Good Faith and the Doctrine of Specific Performance: Rights, Duties and Equitable Discretion
    (Juta, 2016-03-01) Siliquini-Cinelli, Luca; Hutchison, Andrew
    This paper will explore the European roots of the doctrine of specific performance and the influence of transformative constitutionalism on these in recent times. The question of whether specific performance is available as of right (as in the Civil law), or only subject to judicial discretion (as in the Common law), will be investigated. The demonstrated impact of constitutional rights on contract law in the mixed system of South Africa will be contrasted with developments in English and Australian contract law, where the Common law rules are more deeply entrenched and the potential scope for human rights-based development of these is arguably smaller, though still important. The paper will argue, using comparative rules on specific performance as an example, that the concept of a duty of good faith or contractual fairness, is likely to play a greater role in future in all three of the countries under consideration, reducing the common/civil/mixed legal systems divide.
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    Remedies for anticipatory breach of contract
    (2015) Fischer, Martin Jason; Naudé, Tjakie
    The thesis discusses the origin and development of anticipatory breach of contract in South African law leading up to the decision in Datacolor International (Pty) Ltd v Intamarket (Pty) Ltd 2001 (2) SA 284 (SCA) and the implications of this decision on the law. This decision is generally regarded as the culmination of the development of a 'new approach' to repudiation, as a form of anticipatory breach of contract, in South African law and this 'new approach' and other aspects of the decision will be discussed in detail. Drawing on Datacolor International (Pty) Ltd v Intamarket (Pty) Ltd and the decisions of Lord Diplock in English law the thesis proposes a model for anticipatory breach of contract that defines anticipatory breach of contract as conduct or circumstances that support a conclusion, with reasonable certainty, that a contracting party will fail to perform their primary obligations under the contract correctly and that such failure justifies affording the aggrieved party a right to cancel the contract. Anticipatory breach of contract will therefore always amount to a material breach of contract, where material breach of contract consists of a failure by a contracting party to perform her or his primary obligations correctly, or conduct which indicates with reasonable certainty that she or he will fail to perform their primary obligations correctly, which will substantially deprive the aggrieved party of the benefit of the contract. If, balancing the interests of the parties, it would be fair to afford the aggrieved party a right to cancel the contract this conduct will amount to a material breach of contract. Anticipatory breaches of contract are those material breaches which consist of conduct indicating that a failure will occur rather than consisting of the actual failure to perform a primary obligation. In addition to defining when the remedy of cancellation is available to an aggrieved party the thesis also proposes certain other modifications to the remedies available to an aggrieved party facing an anticipatory breach of contract including introducing into the South African law, as a remedy for an anticipated breach of contract, a 'request for an adequate assurance of performance' modelled on the remedy of the same name originating in the Uniform Commercial Code.
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    The German "culpa in contrahendo"
    (1998) Ick, Harald; Hutchison, Dale
    In German law the contractual liability of the debtor requires an obligation, this is expressed within the German civil code which formulates 'an obligatory relationship'. For this reason, any fault (Verschulden) committed before or during the conclusion of a contract, can only be an unlawful act, in the circumstances of the law of delict. However certain problems in the law of delict arise, such as the enumeration principle, exculpatory proof, burden of proof and prescription times. These problems caused unsatisfactory results in special constellations since the German Civil Code (BGB) was enacted in 1900. Therefore, the courts and the legal writers i.n addition to the written code, and without consent or refusal by the legislator, developed the concept of 'culpa in contrahendo' as 'fault during the negotiations of a contract' (Verschulden bei Vertragsverhandlungen).
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    Uncovering Contracting Norms in Khayelitsha Stokvels
    (2020-02-17) Hutchison, Andrew
    Most written accounts of traditional African customary law in South Africa do not describe a law of commercial contracting. This is despite the fact that contracting happens every day in South Africa’s largely African informal sector. This article reports the findings of a qualitative empirical study of stokvels (informal savings and credit associations) conducted in Khayelitsha, Cape Town in 2018. Stokvels are an example of the appropriation and adaptation of modern financialised practices into Indigenous African culture. As such, they present an example of Indigenous modernity, being neither Western nor traditional. I will argue that vernacular commercial norms may be found in modern stokvel practice, which is ordered through a system of private contracting.