Prof. Valcke's article cited by House of Lords

An article by Prof. Catherine Valcke comparing French and English contract law was cited recently by Lord Hoffman, of the UK’s House of Lords, who called it “illuminating.”

As Valcke explains: “The issue facing the court was whether pre-contractual negotiations should be taken into account when interpreting contracts. The party arguing in favour of using the pre-contractual negotiations had pointed to the fact that Continental courts commonly do so.  In the article in question, I had argued that whereas reference to pre-contractual negotiations makes perfect sense at civil law, given the civilian conception of contractual intention as subjective intention, it makes little sense under the objective conception of contractual intention endorsed by the common law. The court relied on the argument in that article to deny recourse to pre-contractual negotiations.”

The full article is titled “On Comparing French and English Contract Law: Insights from Social Contract Theory,” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1328923, published in January in the Journal of Comparative Law 2009.

View the citation here, at paragraph 39: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090701/chart.pdf