On The First Contractual Obligations Before The Contract Responsibility

The pre-contractual obligation is a kind of legal obligation imposed on the both parties before the contract is concluded or when the contract is void. It was first expounded by German jurist Jhering as the liability of fault in negotiating. The liability of fault in negotiating has been existed more than one hundred years and still plays very important role in the system of liability law. The pre-contractual obligation is not the traditional obligation of contract. It comes into effect from reasonable reliance between the contractual parties and ends at the execution of the contract. The pre-contractual obligation has its own characteristics, both related and different from other obligations of contract. Though the theory developed differently in continental law system counties and common law system counties, the two systems both concern about preliminary agreement and maintain that the pre-contractual obligation should be imposed on the both parties based on reliance. The development of the theory reflects the reform of contract law. In a sense, the development and evolvement of contract law is also a continuous course in which contractual obligations have been extended from performing obligations to pre-contractual, subordinated and subsequent contractual obligations.The thesis makes a study of the practical reasons and theoretic reasons why contractual obligations have been extended. Here the theoretical basis is the principle of trust and credit. Besides, it points out the denomination and connotation of the pre-contractual obligation. The thesis also points out the pre-contractual liability is a kind of dependent civil responsibility and discusses the modalities and legal consequences of the pre-contractual liability. The pre-contractual liability (the liability of fault in negotiating) includes the contract efficacy-liability.This article is constituted by six parts. In the first and second parts, author narrates the history origins of the pre-contractual obligation simply, but focuses the point statement on development cause and theoretical basis of the pre-contractual obligation. Its theory was based on the principle of honesty and trust. The principle of honesty and trust in civil law expands contract obligations. This is a historic advance in protecting the law rights and interests of parties to contracts. In the third part, conception and nature of the pre-contractual obligation are discussed. The pre-contractual obligation is a kind of legal obligation that is different to the subordinated obligation. It comes into effect from reasonable reliance between the contractual parties and ends at the execution of the contract. Part four of article illustrates the characteristic of the pre-contractual liability that is a kind of dependent civil responsibility and discusses the modalities of the pre-contractual liability. The contract-breaking actions may appear in two periods: one is the bargaining period from negotiation to agreement between the two parties; the other is the contract forming period from agreement to come-into-operation. According to the opinion, the pre-contractual liability is divided into the liability of fault in negotiating and the contract efficacy-liability. The fifth part is on duty-undertaking problems which are involved in the above two liability. The one way of bearing responsibility is to pay compensation. The scope of compensation is the loss of interest to the victim that includes reliance interest and integral interest. The scope of compensation for reliance interest loss is direct and indirect loss. Compensation for damages of reliance interest should adopt the comprehensive principle of actual compensation rather than be limited in the benefit of performance. Besides, the article mainly discusses the redeeming responsibility based on the efficacy. The sixth part, the conclusion of the article, introduces and evaluates the pre-contractual obligation of the Contract Law in our country. Then the article puts forward pieces of suggestions for legislation of the pre-contractual obligation, and perfects the theory on the pre-contractual liability in order to solve the problem of the application of the pre-contractual liability.