On Legal Regulation Of Standard Contracts

Form Contract, also referred to as Standard Contract, is one type of contract in which the terms and conditions are drawn up in advance by one party for unspecific conclusions and the counterparty has to generally accept or reject them without space to negotiate. In some way, the applications of Form Contract cut down the troubles for negotiation of the parties concerned and save time and money, therefore reduce the cost of business. However, it also raises a series of problems in theoretical and practical aspects. Firstly, its feature to preclude the negotiation gives a heavy impact to the principle of the freedom of agreements under traditional civil law. For the maximum of interests, Form Contract is usually adopted in practice by the predominant party, who may take advantages to make some unfair and unreasonable terms and conditions, such as exemption clauses, which leads to uneven share of risk. Secondly, the academic study of Form Contract in China is on the elementary step due to current legal system and ideology. The legislations and judicial practice are relatively short of control towards to Form Contract. The consumer's consciousness to self-defend their rights need be strengthened.This article first gives the concept of Form Contract by its definition and analysis of legal nature and pros and cons of Form Contract. Then, based on the legislations and legal status on the Form Contract in some countries, the article discusses the shortcoming in current legislations about Form Contract in China and makes suggestions to establish a legal system of Form Contract with the characteristics of China.