The binding character of contracts
- causa and consideration.

Matthias E. Storme

Hoogleraar at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Universiteit Antwerpen. Secretary of the Commission on European Contract Law (since 1992). Executive Editor of the European Review of Private Law. Advocate at the Brussels Bar.

From: Towards a european Civil Code (red. A.S. Hartkamp, M.W. Hesselink, E.H. Hondius), Second revised and expanded edition, Kluwer / Ars aequi 1998, 239-254

full text on http://www.storme.be/bindingcharactercontracts.pdf

CONTENTS

1. Introduction.

2. The binding character of contracts or promises
2.1. The scope of the freedom to contract s.s.
2.2. The minimum core of common rules and a (re)formulation of the problem
2.3. Cause, consideration and the “mere agreement” rule.
2.4. Theoretical background and some lessons to be learned from social sciences.
2.5. The hidden requirements - cause and consideration.
2.6. Evaluation
2.7. Sufficient agreement, “object” and indeterminate terms.

3. Integrating the different sources for the construction or determination of contractual obligations
3.1. Different sources of contractual content
3.2. Defining bona fides.

4. The tendency to restrict invalidity in favour of application of the rules on performance and non-performance
4.1. Promises losing their “causa”.
4.2. Validity to be determined at the time of concluding a contract.
4.3. Impossibility from the outset is not an invalidity
4.4. Unlawfulness from the outset.
4.5. Abstraction of promises