Third Party Beneficiary: A Comparative Analysis

1976 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Shalev

Chapter 4 of the new Israeli Contracts (General Part) Law, 1973, introduces the concept of a contract in favour of a third party, while granting express recognition to the right of a third party beneficiary. Even those, (including the author) who maintain, that the right of a third party beneficiary could and should be derived, even before the commencement of the new Law, from the general principles and premises of the old Israeli law of contract, cannot fail to see in the above-mentioned chapter an important innovation in the Israeli legal system.This paper is a comparative analysis of the institution of third party beneficiary. The analysis will consist of a presentation and critical examination of the central concepts and doctrines involved in the institution under discussion, and it will be combined with a comparative survey of the arrangements adopted in various legal systems. The choice of this approach stems from the particular circumstances of the new legislation.While in most countries, comparative legal research is a luxury, in Israel it is a necessity. The new legislation in private law is inspired to a great extent by Continental codifications. As far as the law of contract is concerned, Israel is now in the process of becoming a “mixed jurisdiction”: departing from the common law tradition and technique, and heading towards an independent body of law, derived from various sources, mainly Continental in both substance and form.

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel D. Smith

The French jurist Pierre Lepaulle argued that the common law trust could be best understood, in civilian terms, as a patrimony by appropriation. This argument has been influential in some civilian receptions of the trust. In fact, Lepaulle misunderstood the nature of the common law trust, which is founded on the obligations owed by the trustee in relation to the trust property. The rights of beneficiaries in the common law trust are neither purely personal rights against the trustee, nor are they real rights in the trust property, but rather they are rights over the rights which the trustee holds as trust property; they have a proprietary character since they persist against many third party transferees of the trust property. This analysis of the common law trust leads to the conclusion that it would be a fundamental change to turn the common law trust into a legal person. More generally, it is argued that any legal system that characterizes the trust as a legal person will find that it has ceased to understand the trust as a fundamental legal institution.


1979 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-285
Author(s):  
Wilberforce

I was not surprised when, from several alternative subjects, you chose, as the title of my Lecture, the need for a Constitution in Britain. Those of us without a written constitution are indeed, a select club—New Zealand, Israel, the United Kingdom.I will start with a quotation from Lord Salmon. In a recent lecture, he said: In this country [U.K.] we have an unwritten constitution. I have always regarded this as a blessing and never agreed with the theoretical objections to it. It is superbly flexible and above all it has stood the test of time. It works—and works admirably. But I am beginning to wonder whether it might not be wise to evolve, not an elaborate written constitution but perhaps the equivalent of a modern Bill of Rights. A statute which should lay down our basic freedoms, provide for their preservation and enact that it could not be repealed save by, say, a 75% majority of both Houses of Parliament.One can recognize in this passage the views of an eminent common lawyer, believing in the strength and potentialities of the common law as a flexible instrument, in, of course, the right hands: of one who believes deeply in human freedom, and who is concerned about the threat to it: who desires an explicit definition of the basic liberties and who believes that these can be protected by a sufficiently strong, entrenched, legal system. In this he undoubtedly reflects the views of many people, probably of the majority of ordinary men.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Wiseman Ubochioma

The question of how best to protect the interests of a promoter, a third party, and a company in pre-incorporation contracts is one that seems to have defied corporate law. Although this problem has its origin in common law, various countries have made efforts to address it through statutory reforms. The paper, therefore, examines the extent to which the Canadian and Nigerian legal regimes for the pre-incorporation contract have provided panaceas to the problem. This paper, through a comparative analysis, argues that although the legal regimes have made efforts to reform the common law rule on pre-incorporation contracts, they suffer patent defects. It also posits that notwithstanding the defects in the laws, the Canadian legal regimes offer more protection to parties to pre-incorporation contracts than Nigerian law. The paper suggests reforms in both regimes that would meet the reasonable expectations of the parties to a pre incorporation contract


2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helge Dedek

Every legal system that ties judicial decision making to a body of preconceived norms has to face the tension between the normative formulation of the ideal and its approximation in social reality. In the parlance of the common law, it is, more concretely, the remedy that bridges the gap between the ideal and the real, or, rather, between norms and facts. In the common law world—particularly in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth—a lively discourse has developed around the question of how rights relate to remedies. To the civilian legal scholar—used to thinking within a framework that strictly categorizes terms like substance and procedure, subjective right, action, and execution—the concept of remedy remains a mystery. The lack of “remedy” in the vocabulary of the civil law is more than just a matter of attaching different labels to functional equivalents, it is the expression of a different way of thinking about law. Only if a legal system is capable of satisfactorily transposing the abstract discourse of the law into social reality does the legal machinery fulfill its purpose: due to the pivotal importance of this translational process, the way it is cast in legal concepts thus allows for an insight into the deep structure of a legal culture, and, convergence notwithstanding, the remaining epistemological differences between the legal traditions of the West. A mixed jurisdiction must reflect upon these differences in order to understand its own condition and to define its future course.


1995 ◽  
Vol 21 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 281-300
Author(s):  
Jody Weisberg Menon

Pleas for reform of the legal system are common. One area of the legal system which has drawn considerable scholarly attention is the jury system. Courts often employ juries as fact-finders in civil cases according to the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved … .” The general theory behind the use of juries is that they are the most capable fact-finders and the bestsuited tribunal for arriving at the most accurate and just outcomes. This idea, however, has been under attack, particularly by those who claim that cases involving certain difficult issues or types of evidence are an inappropriate province for lay jurors who typically have no special background or experience from which to make informed, fair decisions.The legal system uses expert witnesses to assist triers of fact in understanding issues which are beyond their common knowledge or difficult to comprehend.


2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa

AbstractThe 1994 Malawian Constitution is unique in that it, among other things, recognizes administrative justice as a fundamental right and articulates the notion of constitutional supremacy. This right and the idea of constitutional supremacy have important implications for Malawi's administrative law, which was hitherto based on the common law inherited from Britain. This article highlights the difficulties that Malawian courts have faced in reconciling the right to administrative justice as protected under the new constitution with the common law. In doing so, it offers some insights into what the constitutionalization of administrative justice means for Malawian administrative law. It is argued that the constitution has altered the basis and grounds for judicial review so fundamentally that the Malawian legal system's marriage to the English common law can be regarded as having irretrievably broken down as far as administrative law is concerned.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony O. Nwafor

The realization that the directors occupy important position in corporate governance, and as business men and women, cannot be prevented from having dealings with the company, demand a close scrutiny of corporate transactions in which they are directly or indirectly involved or have an interest to ensure that such interest is not placed above their duty to the company. One of the ways in which the law strives to achieve this balance is by imposing a duty on the director to disclose to the board any interest he has in company’s transactions. This requirement which was previously governed by the common law and the company’s articles, is presently increasingly finding a place in companies statutes in different jurisdictions. The paper examines, through a comparative analysis, the provisions on the duty of the director to disclose interest in company’s transactions in South Africa and United Kingdom with the aim of discovering the extent to which the statute in both jurisdictions upholds the common law prescriptions. The paper argues that the need for transparency in corporate governance and the preservation of the distinct legal personality of the company demand that the duty to disclose interest should be upheld even in those cases of companies run by a sole director.


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