Post - Contractual Obligations

Contract is a dynamic process of producing, developing and ending. The process includes three phases:contracting, fulfilling and fulfilled. With the diversity of major economic body, modern contract relationship is gradually changing. The traditional concept of contractual obligation and liability can not adapt to the needs of the economic and social development. When modifying and perfecting the contract laws, various situations, generated in the process of development of the contact relations, should be fully considered, including before the contract, in the contract, and after the contract and so on. Besides, we can’t be limited to use payment obligations to adjust the legal relationship between the parties. According to the modem contract laws, the contract relationship expands the phase of after the contract to safeguard the unity of the interests of contract and protect the security of transaction. The backward expansion of contract relationship means that there are still obligations after the contract relationship ends. This phenomenon can be called post contract obligations or after the contract obligations. One should bear the post contract responsibility if he contravenes post contract obligations.Recently, there are still no detailed provisions of how to make clear the nature of post contract obligations and how to maintain the consequences after the violation of post contract obligations. According to the consistent principle between obligation and liability, one should bear the post contract liability if he violates or does not fulfill the post contract obligations. However, there has been much controversy over how to look at such issue of the relationship between post contract liability and liability for breach of contract and tort liability and so on. This paper explores the base of the generation of post contract liability and highlights the research on the standards of the uses of post contract obligation and liability.The paper firstly reviews the history of contract obligation. With the change of the way of economic activity, contract obligation breaks through the traditional concept of timing and forward and backward extension of post contract obligation takes place. Contract expansion theory thus appears. Based on the backward extension of contract obligation, post contract obligation is constructed and gradually standardized. Our country, for the first time, puts post contract obligation into contract laws and states that the party bears the obligation that they should notice, assist and swear to secrecy after the contract ends. Secondly, on the basis the principle of honesty, the paper makes a brief exploration on the concept, constitution and nature of post contract obligation. By citing some typical cases. the author compares the post contract obligation and other contract obligation and analyzes the relationships and differences of the components in different contract obligation to have a more accurate cognition of post contract obligation. Finally, the paper discusses the post contract liability. Based on elaboration of post contract obligation, the author expounds post contract liability from the perspective of its generation, contents, nature and judicial application and so on. The last section of the paper concludes the shortages of post contract obligation and liability in the contract laws of our country. What’s more, the author proposes some suggestions for further modification.