Non-professional, the obligie of obligation to inform in contract in french law

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Associate Professor, Department of Private Law and Economic Law, Faculty of law, University of Shahid Beheshti, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Concern for the protection of the weak party is a characteristic of contemporary French contract law. In the area of the obligation to provide information, the question arises as to what criterion should be applied to distinguish the weak party from the one placed in a position of power: On what basis is the party in the inferior position protected by jurisprudence and by the legislator in the face of their (stronger) partner? The principle applicable to the body of pre-contractual and contractual obligations relating to the disclosure of information is the degree of knowledge that one of the contracting parties has about the other. This widespread and objective concept of the layman as proposed by jurisprudence is indirectly accepted by legislators through the use of the term ‘non-professional’. According to the jurisprudential criterion, the professional consumer who acts beyond his/her competence when concluding a contract may be regarded as a ‘non-professional’ in order to benefit from legal and judicial protection, provided through the obligation to disclose information.

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