The Concept of Non-Contractual Obligations

actio legis Aquiliae
.
119
Similarly, modern business contracts often contain 
agreements with regard to the period of prescription, or the degree of care owed. 
Such agreements would be meaningless if they did not also relate to the parallel 
delictual liability. Similar problems arise where the legal standards of liability or the 
periods of prescription under contract and tort law diverge. Today, specific 
instances of non-contractual strict liability, such as liability for animals or traffic 
accidents, must be harmonised with diverging standards of liability (often 
presupposing fault) in contract law.
120
Such cases are difficult because of the 
interplay between contract law and torts, but they do not raise the problem of 
drawing a clear line between contract and tort law. 
Much more difficult, in this respect, appears the third question of how to 
understand and doctrinally reconstruct and classify pre-contractual liability.
121
In 
the course of contractual negotiations, one party may make misrepresentations 
inducing the other party to conclude a contract which it would not otherwise have 
concluded. If the mistaken party incurs expenses in prospect of the contract, or if it 
abstained from concluding another contract, the question of a claim for damages 
against the other party arises. Or, a party negotiated with no real intention of 
concluding a contract; it simply used the negotiations to prevent a competitor from 
entering the market or to get a better offer from a third party. Or, one party 
negotiated and ultimately concluded the contract, in violation of a lock-out 
agreement, with a competitor of the other party. There are many other possible 
cases where the conduct of one negotiating party causes loss to the other party. 
Whether the law should grant a remedy in such cases is a difficult question to which 
legal systems have given divergent answers. Clearly, the different approaches 
mirror diverging policies in this area. Whereas in many legal systems parties are 
supposed to negotiate in good faith and in this respect to cooperate, common 
lawyers have traditionally seen contract negotiations as an intrinsically antagonistic 
procedure where parties are assumed to negotiate at arms length, pursuing their own 
best interests alone.
122
Moreover, these differences relate to questions of doctrinal framework, 
especially whether such claims are understood as being contractual or delictual in 
nature, or whether they are claims 
sui generis
„in between‟ contract and tort law.
123
119
Ulpian
, D 9, 2, 27, 29: „… quae res ex locato tollit actionem et Aquiliae‟. 
120
There is no agreement on this question in European private law; cf 
von Bar
(fn 2) vol I, [222], 
[360], [416], with further references. 
121
The literature on this question cannot be compressed into a single footnote: see 
Cartwright/Hesselink
(fn 25). 
122
See generally 
J Cartwright/M Hesselink
, Conclusions, in: iid (fn 25) 449, 451 ff, 461 ff, with 
further references to the national reports. 
123
Cartwright/Hesselink
(fn 122) 457 ff, with further references to the national reports. 

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23 
In many legal systems, the categorisation of such claims is regarded as a difficult, 
unclear question.
124
Indeed, unless there is an express contract determining the 
rights and duties of the parties in the course of complex negotiations, such claims 
cannot be based on a contract – whether because a contract was never concluded or 
because the misrepresentation was made before the conclusion of the contract. Yet 
such claims are also difficult to categorise in the context of non-contractual 
obligations, at least if these are seen as specifically concerning the interests that are 
protected