"A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more mutually agreeing parties. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to transfer any of those at a future date."
The area of law that deals with agreements between two or more parties, including the formation, interpretation, and enforcement of contracts.
Offer and Acceptance: The basic elements of a contract, including the communication of an offer, its acceptance, and the formation of anagreement.
Consideration: The value exchanged between the parties, such as money or a promise to do something, that makes the contract legally binding.
Capacity: The legal competence of parties to enter into a contract, including the ability to understand its terms and consequences.
Intent: The subjective intention of the parties to create a contract, demonstrated by their words or conduct.
Statute of Frauds: A requirement that certain types of contracts be in writing, including contracts for the sale of land, goods over a certain value, and agreements that cannot be performed within one year.
Contract interpretation: The rules and principles used to understand the meaning of the contract's terms, including the doctrine of contra proferentem (interpreting ambiguous terms against the drafting party) and the use of extrinsic evidence.
Breach: The failure of a party to perform its obligations under the contract, leading to damages or other remedies for the injured party.
Performance: The satisfaction of a party's contractual obligations, including the requirement of substantial performance and the doctrine of anticipatory breach.
Termination and Rescission: The ways in which a contract may be brought to an end, including by agreement, breach, frustration, and impossibility.
Damages: The monetary compensation awarded to the injured party for breach of contract, including the measurement of damages according to expectation or reliance.
Specific Performance: An equitable remedy that orders a party to perform its obligations under the contract, usually for contracts involving unique goods or services.
Remedies for Breach: The various options available to an injured party when the other party has breached the contract, including damages, specific performance, and cancellation.
Third-Party Rights: The extent to which third parties may have rights under or be liable for a contract, including assignability of rights, delegation of duties, and enforcement of contracts by non-parties.
Contractual Disputes and Dispute Resolution: The different methods of resolving disputes that arise under contract, including litigation, arbitration, and mediation.
Express Contracts: These are contracts that are formed when the parties involved agree to the terms of the contract, either verbally or in writing.
Implied Contracts: These are contracts that arise from the conduct of the parties involved. An implied contract is formed when the parties act in a manner that suggests the existence of a contract.
Unilateral Contracts: These are contracts that are formed when only one party makes a promise in exchange for the other party's performance.
Bilateral Contracts: These are contracts that are formed when both parties make promises to each other.
Executed Contracts: These are contracts that are fully performed by both parties.
Executory Contracts: These are contracts that are not fully performed by one or both parties.
Void Contracts: These are contracts that are not legally binding because they lack an essential element.
Voidable Contracts: These are contracts that may be canceled by one party because of fraud, duress, or other legal grounds.
Unenforceable Contracts: These are contracts that are otherwise valid but cannot be enforced because of a technicality.
Adhesion Contracts: These are contracts that are presented to a party on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, with no opportunity for negotiation.
Aleatory Contracts: These are contracts in which the performance of one or both parties is contingent on an uncertain event.
Option Contracts: These are contracts in which one party has the right to buy or sell at a later date at a predetermined price.
Frustrated Contracts: These are contracts where the fulfilment of contractual expectations is made impossible, illegal or unlawful by external events beyond the control of the parties.
"In the event of a breach of contract, the injured party may seek judicial remedies such as damages or rescission."
"A binding agreement between actors in international law is known as a treaty."
"Contract law, the field of the law of obligations concerned with contracts, is based on the principle that agreements must be honored."
"Like other areas of private law, contract law varies between jurisdictions. In general, contract law is exercised and governed either under common law jurisdictions, civil law jurisdictions, or mixed-law jurisdictions that combine elements of both common and civil law."
"Common law jurisdictions typically require contracts to include consideration in order to be valid."
"Civil and most mixed-law jurisdictions solely require a meeting of the minds between the parties."
"Within the overarching category of civil law jurisdictions, there are several distinct varieties of contract law with their own distinct criteria."
"The German tradition is characterized by the unique doctrine of abstraction."
"Systems based on the Napoleonic Code are characterized by their systematic distinction between different types of contracts."
"Roman-Dutch law is largely based on the writings of renaissance-era Dutch jurists and case law applying general principles of Roman law prior to the Netherlands' adoption of the Napoleonic Code."
"The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, published in 2016, aim to provide a general harmonized framework for international contracts...as well as a statement of common contractual principles for arbitrators and judges to apply where national laws are lacking."
"Notably, the Principles reject the doctrine of consideration, arguing that elimination of the doctrine 'bring[s] about greater certainty and reduce litigation' in international trade."
"The Principles also rejected the abstraction principle on the grounds that it and similar doctrines are 'not easily compatible with modern business perceptions and practice'."
"While tort law generally deals with private duties and obligations that exist by operation of law, and provide remedies for civil wrongs committed between individuals not in a pre-existing legal relationship, contract law provides for the creation and enforcement of duties and obligations through a prior agreement between parties."
"The emergence of quasi-contracts, quasi-torts, and quasi-delicts renders the boundary between tort and contract law somewhat uncertain."