The Concept of Non-Contractual Obligations

erga omnes
and not just 
vis-à-vis
a contracting partner. 
Despite all these differences and although there is no agreement as to the 
basic policies and to the proper doctrinal classification, it appears that lawyers in 
most legal systems use a similar legal language to discuss such questions. Central 
concepts are the contract partner‟s expectations and reliance, and the question of 
whether such reliance was justified.
125
It is the same language that is used for 
discussing liability for negligent misstatements more generally.
126
Remarkably, this 
is true even for legal systems where claims are classified within tort law.
127
This 
common contractual terminology makes apparent that there is even basic agreement 
as to the fundamental normative question to be answered in such cases. This is the 
question whether the claimant‟s expectations and reliance on the negotiating 
partner‟s representations and cooperation were justified. This question can only be 
answered on the basis of contract law policy; and with regard to age requirements 
and the interpretation of statements, contract law principles do indeed apply. 
However, the claimant does not generally recover normal contractual expectation 
damages, as his or her claims cannot be based on a (valid) contract. Granting 
expectation damages, it is generally assumed, would violate the principle of the 
freedom of contract. Nearly
128
all legal systems limit compensation to „negative‟ or 
reliance
 
interests.
129
It follows that the compensation is measured in accordance with the 
diminution in value of what the claimant actually had: the damages should put the 
124
Thus, Belgian courts base liability upon the delictual general clause of Art 1382 Code civil, but 
nevertheless categorise it – in clearly contractual terminology – as 
culpa in contrahendo
; see 
Cass 1st (1 October 1976) [1977] Pasicrisie Belge 133 ff.
 
Likewise, in the Netherlands the 
categorisation of pre-contractual liability oscillates unclearly between tort and the contractual notion 
of good faith; cf Hoge Raad (HR) (13 February 1981) [1981] Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (NJ) 
No 456
 
(tort); HR (18 June 1982) [1983] NJ No 723 (good faith). 
125
Cartwright/Hesselink
(fn 122) 453 f, 470, 478 and passim. 
126
Jansen
(fn 10) 534 ff. 
127
See 
Nocton
v
Ashburton
[1914] AC 932, 955 (
Viscount Haldane, LC
) „implied contract at law or ... 
fiduciary obligation in equity‟. This is the general approach of the common law with regard to 
negligent misstatements: see 
Hedley Byrne
v Heller & Partners
[1964] AC 465, 486 f (Lord Reid), 
529 f (Lord Devlin); 
White
v
Jones
[1995] 2 AC 207, 266, 267 ff (Lord Goff), 271 ff (Lord Browne-
Wilkinson); see also 
Spring
v
Guardian Assurance
[1995] 2 AC 296; cf also 
J Stapleton
, Duty of Care 
and Economic Loss: A Wider Agenda (1991) 107 LQR 248, 286 ff with further references. 
128
Dutch law knows a famous case where expectation damages were granted as a remedy for pre-
contractual fault: HR (18 June 1982) (1983) NJ, No 723, at 3.4. Yet this was a highly exceptional 
decision which has been criticised in subsequent Dutch jurisprudence: see the report by 
M Hesselink
in: Cartwright/Hesselink (fn 25) 47 ff with references on the Dutch discussion. Indeed, awarding 
expectation damages is equivalent to saying that the parties are bound as if a contract had been 
concluded. 
129
See 
Cartwright/Hesselink
(fn 25) 21 ff, 61 ff; 
iid
(fn 122) 545. There is no consensus though, 
about how to measure such interests.

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24 
claimant into the position in which he would have been if no negotiations had taken 
place. In even more abstract terms: the claimant is compensated because he lost 
something that was already his own, rather than because he did not get something 
which – despite being contractually owed to him – was not yet his property.
130
True, 
a claim in respect of reliance damages is not the same as compensation for damage 
to property. Nevertheless, reliance damages have many more similarities with 
normal delictual damages than contractual expectation damages. Often, claimants 
argue that – due to the defendant‟s negotiating in bad faith – they could not 
conclude a favourable contract with a third party. This is precisely the same kind of 
argument as is made where property which the claimant was about to sell is 
destroyed. 
Ultimately pre-contractual liability appears to be based on both contract law 
and tort law principles. The question whether and to what extent pre-contractual 
reliance is protected by the law basically depends on contract law policy. Thus, it is 
highly plausible that pre-contractual liability was included within the Principles of 
European Contract Law.
131
 
Yet whenever such reliance is protected, liability for its 
violation can easily be understood by analogy to a delictual claim where property 
has been damaged: the claimant is fully compensated for his losses resulting 
therefrom. Hence, pre-contractual liability should not altogether be excluded from 
the law of torts either. Its place is not „in between‟ contract and tort; rather, it is 
based on both of these fields of law. Pre-contractual liability may be best 
understood as a kind of delictual liability for the violation of interests that are 
established on the basis of contract law policy.
132
In this respect, there is not much 
difference from other forms of delictual liability: the definition of delictually 
protected interests (Article 2:102 Principles of European Tort Law, PETL) is not 
only found in property law and in tort law,
133
but also in contract law
134
and other