Read the summary and the most important questions on HC week 48

• 1 Introduction

  This is a preview. There are 121 more flashcards available for chapter 1
  Show more cards here

• What are the 5 starting points of English contract law?

  1. There is a general law of contract.

  2. Common law principles and rules.

  3. Limited role for the courts to intervene in the contract.

  4. No general overriding duty of fairness, reasonableness or good faith.

  5. Commercial contracts are generally longer.

• What does a general law of contract mean?

  A general approach of contract is general. In England there are no special contracts.

• What is additional to the general law of contract?

  There is a general concept of contracts, which occasionally gets tweaked by particular regulation for particular contexts.

• When is the most of the modern Englsih contract law developed?

  In the 2nd half of the 19th century.

• What was the result of this context?

  Those are the kind of underlying ideas, which the judges were responding to when they built what we now recognize as the common law of contract.

• What was a 2nd half of the 20th century phenomenon?

  The idea of protecting weak parties through special rules and saying consumers are a group of people that need special protection.

• What is the function of contract according to English lawyers?

  To regulate between two parties who are equal and need the facility of the law to enable them to enter into transactions on an equal level, at arm's length.

• What is the approach of the English lawyer?

  Certainty, predictability and clarity.

• What is the difference in writing contracts between English lawyers and civil lawyers?

  Contracts of English lawyers will be five times as long and way more detailed. 

• What if there is detailed statutory regulation?

  The instinct of an English lawyer is not to rely on that being part of the contract but to repeat it in the contract anyway.