The Good Faith Principle in Contract Law and the Precontractual Duty to Disclose: Comparative Analysis of New Differences in Legal Cultures

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to delineate new convergent similarities and future possible differences between legal systems, using pre-contractual liability and good faith as a focal point of investigation. The first part of the article tries to reframe the ordinary picture of Good Faith in European contract law. Western legal systems differ as to the scope of the good faith principle. In the Civil Law system, the minimalist view is represented by the French courts, who have not relied on the bonne foi to the same extent that their German and Italian counterparts did. An even more minimalist approach is represented by the common law of England does not recognize any general obligation of the parties to a contract to conform to the standard of good faith. The second part of the article focuses the prism of the good faith investigation by concentrating on the pre-contractual duty to inform and by trying to map reciprocal influences, and differences between Europe and United States. The way authors in America and Europe are looking to those issues offer ground to the thesis that European Academia, too keen on the normative analysis, is loosing ground in favor of the, more Law and .. oriented, American Academia.

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