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Di Majo
[1994] Rivista Critica del Diritto Privato 323 ff;
Huber
(fn 79) 735 f, 853 ff;
Hedley
(fn 74) 35 ff, 55 ff;
Schlechtriem
(fn 3) vol I, 405, 748 f;
Wendehorst
(fn 45) 82 f;
ead
, No
Headaches over Unjust Enrichment: Response to Daniel Friedmann, in: K Siehr/R Zimmermann
(eds), The Draft Civil Code for Israel in Comparative Perspective (2008) 113–131, 127 f;
Coen
(fn 74) 35 ff, 310 ff and passim; cf also
Zimmermann
(fn 42) 45 f.
81
See, for the Nordic legal systems,
Schlechtriem
(fn 3) vol I, 519 f, with further references. Most
authors discuss the mutual claims arising from a void contract in the context of the provisions on
invalidity without however spending much ink on the question of the legal nature of these claims.
Similarly, the Spanish and Portuguese civil codes regulate the reversal of void contracts in the
context of the provisions on
nulidad
/
nulidade
(Arts 1303 ff Spanish CC and Art 289 Port CC). The
legal nature of these claims does not matter from the legislator‟s perspective.
82
Arts 3.17 and 7.3.6 UNIDROIT Principles; Art 4:115 PECL; see also
Wendehorst
(fn 45) 82 f.
The inclusion into the contractual context may also be explained, though, with the argument that
there are no comprehensive rules on unjustified enrichment in the PECL; see
Zimmermann
[2005]
Uniform Law Review/Revue de Droit Uniforme 721 f. Yet a similar approach has also been
proposed for German law; see
Huber
(fn 79) 735 f, 853 ff;
Hellwege
(fn 58) 520–572.
83
Art 12 (1) (e) (Rome I) Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations, OJ L 177, 4.7.2008, 6–16;
cf also
Art 10 (1) Rome II Regulation (fn 6).
16
agreements to which contract law applies.
84
The rules and principles relating to the
reversal of failed contracts can therefore find no place within an exposition of the
principles of non-contractual obligations.
b) Non-contractual agreements?
A number of European codifications acknowledge claims in unjustified enrichment
that are based on the fact that one party transferred a benefit to the recipient in order
to elicit counter-performance or the conferral of a corresponding benefit from the
recipient.
85
These provisions are modern descendants of the Roman
condictio causa
data non secuta
.
86
Within the system of Roman law, this was an action of particular
practical relevance. Classical Roman law did not acknowledge a general principle
of
pacta sunt servanda
, but was based, contrarily, on a
numerus clausus
of binding
contracts.
87
Where A and B had informally agreed that A should manumit a slave or
that he should abandon a lawsuit in return for a certain amount of money and B had
paid accordingly, he could still not enforce counter-performance. Hence, parties
performing in reliance on such an agreement had to be given legal protection at
least with regard to their loss. This was achieved by the
condictio causa data non
secuta
that allowed the performing party to reclaim the benefit conferred.
Under modern law, comparable cases are easily resolved within contract law
as a matter of course. European law proceeds from the principle of
pacta sunt
servanda
: mutual agreements are normally binding as contracts.
88
Of course, not
every such agreement is enforced by the law. Agreements may be void for many
different reasons, for example, the agreement‟s illegality. But, after all, these are
problems of contract law. Failed contracts may be reversed. Even if the parties are
aware of their agreement being unenforceable, such cases would be grievously
misunderstood if they were today discussed as a question of protecting reliance on
84
Cf
Hedley
(fn 74) 37.
85
See § 812 (2) 2, alt 2: „Diese Verpflichtung [sc to make restitution] besteht auch dann, wenn der
… mit einer Leistung nach dem Inhalt des Rechtsgeschäfts bezweckte Erfolg nicht eintritt‟);
§ 815 BGB: „Die Rückforderung wegen Nichteintritts des mit einer Leistung bezweckten Erfolges ist
ausgeschlossen, wenn der Eintritt des Erfolges von Anfang an unmöglich war und der Leistende dies
gewusst hat oder wenn der Leistende den Eintritt des Erfolges wider Treu und Glauben verhindert
hat‟; Art 62 (2) Schweizerisches Obligationenrecht (OR, Swiss Code of Obligations): „Insbesondere
tritt diese Verbindlichkeit [sc to make restitution] dann ein, wenn jemand … aus einem nicht
verwirklichten oder nachträglich weggefallenen Grund eine Zuwendung erhalten hat‟. Whereas
French and Italian law have no such provisions and apply in such cases the general principle against
unjustified enrichment, the
condictio ob rem
has been said to have been received into Scots law, yet
in a fundamentally modified form (for a critical assessment, see
R Evans-Jones
, Unjust Enrichment,
Contract and the third Reception of Roman Law in Scotland (1993) 109 LQR 663, with further
references). English common law treats all such cases on the basis of the unjust factor „failure of
consideration‟: see generally
I Englard
, Restitution of Benefits Conferred Without Obligation, in:
International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (IECL) X/5 (1991) [128] ff; more comprehensively
Schlechtriem
(fn 3) vol I, 188–216.
86
Zimmermann
(fn 4) 843 f, 857 ff.
87
Ulpian
, D 2, 14, 7, 4: „… nuda pactio obligationem non parit …‟. The details are disputed: see
Zimmermann
(fn 4) 508–511, 530–537;
MT Fögen
, Vom „Typenzwang‟ des römischen Rechts, in:
Spuren des römischen Rechts. Festschrift für Bruno Huwiler (2007) 249, 254–265.
88
Art 2:201 PECL;
Kötz
(fn 1) 3 ff.
17
agreements outside the realm of contract law. Mutual agreements that are meant
seriously must be governed by contract law,
89
because it is the function of contract
law to decide whether such agreements are binding and to which types of remedies
they may give rise. It is easy to see that the Roman
condictio causa data non secuta
fits badly into this framework.
90
Apparently, it presupposes agreements that do not
amount to contracts. It is unlikely that this notion of an „agreement‟ that does not
amount to a (perhaps void) contractual agreement
91
would have come into the
minds of modern lawyers, had it not survived by reason of pure historical accident
in some modern codifications.
Today, this
condictio
threatens the principle of freedom of contract and thus
contract law‟s integrity.
92
The idea of contractual freedom does not only entail that
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