Legal Aspects of Contracts and Third Parties

This publication, which is part of the Common Core of European Private Law series, addresses and discusses contracts and third parties. With a broader scope than simply contractual rights in favour of third parties, it also considers a variety of situations in which third parties might have a right in or ability to challenge a contract entered into by others.

Legal Aspects of Contracts and Third Parties: On Third-Party Rights, Transfer of Rights, Agency and Contracts contains 11 case studies, designed to address various aspects of the topic of contracts and third parties. It includes examination of contractual clauses for the benefit of a third party, including the ability of the contracting parties to vary or revoke the right in favour of the third party after it has been created; the ability to make the right in favour of the third-party conditional; and the extent to which a third party can rely on a limitation clause in a contract between others. This volume also considers the transfer of contractual rights relating to property after that property has been transferred, as well as assignment of rights under a contract. In addition, it examines principal–agent relations (direct and indirect representation) in concluding and executing contracts and holding property on behalf of another and the effects of the insolvency of the agent on the legal rights of the parties. Actions available to a creditor where a contract is prejudicial to their claim (the actio Pauliana) also feature in the analysis. In addressing these topics, this book takes the intersectionality between various areas of law into account, including contract law, agency, tort law, property law, commercial law, insolvency law, patrimonial law, and other parts of the law of obligations.

The volume contains contributions from 13 legal systems―Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden―and thus sets out the position in civil, common and mixed legal systems.

Legal Aspects of Contracts and Third Parties: On Third-Party Rights, Transfer of Rights, Agency and Contracts also includes chapters on historical aspects of third-party rights and an analysis of the interrelation between contract and tort law for the protection of third parties, thus providing an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of this broad and significant area of contract law.

About the Editors

Prof. Dr Jan Biemans LLM (Harvard) is a professor of law at Utrecht University, who lectures and publishes on financial (private) law, (European) contract law, property, insolvency and succession law.

Lorna Richardson is a senior lecturer in commercial law at the University of Edinburgh. She teaches and publishes on a variety of private law and commercial law subjects including (European) contract law and commercial leasing.

List of contributors

Claudia Amodio, T.T. Arvind, Jan Biemans, Camilla Crea, Kristián Csach, Siel Demeyere, Pasquale Femia, Monika Jagielska, Monika Jurčová, Agata Kozioł, Bartosz Kucia, Lorna MacFarlane, Miquel Martín-Casals, Sonja Meier, Peter Mészáros, J.M. Milo, Oskar Mossberg, Luca Ettore Perriello, Sylvain Ravenne, Lorna Richardson, Tomáš Richter, Vincent Sagaert, Dariusz Szostek, Petar Stefanov Topurov, Carles Vendrell, Flora Vern and Veronika Zoričáková.

Jan Biemans:
Lorna Richardson: