On The Collateral Obligation Of The Contract

As a new subject, contractual collateral obligation has brought increasing attention in both jurisprudence and judicature field. Recent years, some Taiwan legal experts have conducted much research on this subject, and it is also mentioned in the works of some inland legal scholars. Since quite a few clauses of Contract Law of the People's Republic of China, which was enacted in 1999, involve with collateral obligation, more scholars are trying to penetrate to the depth of this subject.The development of modern contract law, in a sense, is the development of the contractual obligations. During the development of the contractual obligation, collateral obligation is one of the most important parts and steps. As the relation between the collateral obligation and other contractual obligations is quite complicated, in order to have a precise perspective and right judgment of the collateral obligation, we need to clarify the relations among these contractual obligations. Most of all, we should have a good understanding about the history of the development of the collateral obligation. The content of collateral obligation refers to what the debtors should do or what they should not do. General speaking, contractual collateral obligation mainly includes obligation of secrecy, caring, notification and protection. Collateral obligation has the function of keeping balance the benefits between the contractual partiesas well as the benefits between the parties and the society. The principle of the liability-judgment for the violence of the collateral obligation is the fault liability principle. The liability for the violence of the collateral obligation may be one or some of the following: liability for breach of contract, liability for tort and liability for fault in negotiation. The suffering party can claim for damage as well as require continuance of performance. There are three standards to ascertain the collateral obligation: strictly confining the collateral obligation, closely attached to the contracting parties, and good balance of benefit and obligation between the parties. Also, we should attach more importance to collateral obligation in our legislative and judicatory work. What's more, the contracting parties should pay more attention to their respective collateral obligation in contract practice.