On The Composition And Effectiveness Of The Agent Behavior

A contract is conventionally viewed as a bilateral juristic act, and the act of agency of concluding a contract for a third party, if viewed as a juristic act, should also be viewed as a bilateral juristic act. As far as the act of agency is concerned, acts of both parties to a contract should refer to acts between the agent and the relative subject, if the bilateral juristic act refers to the act of both parties with unanimous meaning expression. According the theory of the agent's act and provisions of law in effect, the act of agency refers only to the agent's act, the relative subject's act excluded. So the act of agency and concluding a contract for others is obviously different from the bilateral juristic act even though the act of agency of concluding a contract for a third party is often viewed as a bilateral juristic act.The quality of the bilateral juristic act prescribes the condition of its validity as the recognition of the opposite party, thus differentiating from the autonomy of unilateral juristic acts. Therefore, when defining the bilateral juristic act, the connotation of the bilateral juristic act is made clear only when other's intention is stressed to ensure its existence and the recognition of the other party's meaning is stressed to ensure its validity, and acts of both parties to a contract need not to be included. The definition of the bilateral juristic act can be more precisely stated as the juristic act of the actor's intention to build up relations of obligation and responsibility with the particular relative subject (establishment), and of gaining a positive evaluation with the particular relative subject's agreement (validity). The bilateral juristic act and the unilateral act are both the act of intention of a subject. They are different from each other both in the establishment stage when words about the particular relative subject must be included in the meaning expression in the former but not necessarily in the latter, and in the validity stage when words of agreement by the relative subject should be included in the former but not necessarily at all in the latter. The act of agency of concluding a contract for a third party, though just the agent's act, is exactly a bilateral juristic act.Validity is an important factor in determining the consequences of a juristic act. Validity of a juristic act refers to whether the substantive entities referred to in the meaning expression are affirmed by law, namely, whether the legal consequences are generated as prescribed in the meaning expression. That's also true of the validity of act of agency. However, people often misunderstand the validity of act of agency, which is due to the special structure of act of agency. The act of agency can be decomposed into two acts: one is abstract act of agency, a act in the name of others, which refers to a act, with restrictions in form to differentiate from general legal acts, that actor's juristic act with/towards the relative subject in the name of others instead of himself; and the other is concrete act of agency which, with restrictions in content to differentiate from juristic acts with various aims, refers to the act of presupposing the concrete relations of obligation and responsibility. Abstract and concrete act of agency constitute the whole act of agency, and by meeting various elements of juristic acts, they both belong to juristic act and have their own states of validity or invalidity.Discussion about the validity of act of agency should be based on its special structure and it should be viewed as two bilateral juristic acts, namely, abstract act of agency and concrete act of agency. Validity of abstract act of agency indicates that the status of a party to a contract gained by the principal is recognized by law and the principal should bear responsibility for legal consequences of the agent's act, while validity of concrete act of agency implies that the obligation and responsibility presupposed by the agent are recognized by law.In summary, the act of agency of concluding a contract for a third party consists of two bilateral juristic acts and they both have their own validity.