Rechtsfolgen der Übervorteilung

In the discussion of contractual overreaching, freedom of contract is usually contrasted with contractual justice. This Freiburg dissertation, which approaches the topic from a comparative law perspective, considers this dichotomy to be questionable. According to the view presented therein, the principle of private autonomy remains untouched by the requirements of contractual justice. Against this background, the author reveals the motives of modern legal developments in the field of overreaching, which aim at making human behavior in legal transactions predictable by making the legal consequences apparatus more flexible. The legal consequences of overreaching are therefore not limited to contract avoidance. Rather, it also includes various types of contract modification, a possible claim for damages, the conferral of powers on the other party, and the gradation of legal consequences. The variety of conceivable solutions in dealing with overreaching, which results from comparative law, is confirmed from the point of view of legal history. The historical-legal comparative study, which the work contains, illustrates the development of legal consequences in European private law. Including the laesio enormis of Roman law as a tertium comparationis, the author sheds light on Swiss, Italian, Polish and Dutch private law. He also shows the development potential of the legal institution by analyzing supranational soft law.