Law of obligations and contracts [DRHDB203]

Learning outcomes

a. Specific skills

- To appropriate the concepts, rules and principles of the law of obligations.

- To make the student understand the issues and the various sources on which the law of obligations is based.

- Develop the ability to conduct a rigorous and critical analysis of the law of obligations.

- To move from the abstract norm to the concrete fact and, conversely, to develop the ability to ask relevant legal questions, in particular through the resolution of cases and practical work.

b. Cross-cutting competences

- To make the student aware of the relative and evolving nature of legal solutions and the controversies they may generate.

- Defend a point of view in an argumentative manner.

- Use the French language as a tool for legal thinking and master legal terminology.

- Improve and mobilise language skills in Dutch legal terminology, at least in a receptive way.

Objectives

- To train the student in a legal discipline considered essential for a good understanding of the whole of private law, by ensuring rigorous mastery of the learning outcomes.

- To inculcate in the student the concepts, principles and institutions of the law of obligations, to confront him with the legal texts and the principal jurisprudential decisions in the matter, to make him perceive the evolutions in progress and their range, finally to develop his aptitude to apply the principles and texts to concrete cases.

Content

The Law of Obligations and Contracts course is the logical continuation of the Law of Obligations course taught in the first year of the baccalauréat. It is in line with the teaching of Bac 1.

From the legal fact, the student is now, in the continuity of his learning, confronted with the legal act and, more particularly, with contracts. In the first part, after having placed the concept of legal act at the heart of the law of obligations, the contract is analysed from the point of view of its formation, its execution and its dissolution.

The formation of the contract, as the meeting of offer and acceptance, is the starting point. It will lead to the theory of defects in consent, the impact of the concepts of public policy and good morals, pre-contractual liability and the possible right of withdrawal.

The execution of the contract includes, on the one hand, the analysis of the effects of the contract between the parties and, on the other hand, the study of its effects on third parties. Attention is also paid to contract modification and suspension.

The dissolution of the contract implies the analysis of the normal and abnormal causes of extinction (performance of the contract, annulment, resolution, termination, rescission, nullity, mutuus dissensus,...).

In the second part, the general regime of the obligation is examined, namely

• The terms of the obligation (term and condition), plural obligations and forced execution of the obligation;

• The normal (payment, subrogatory payment) and abnormal (dation in payment, novation, set-off, remission of debt, forfeiture and lapse) ways of extinguishing the obligation;

• Confusion and prescription which affect not the existence but the enforceability of the obligation;

• The transmission of the obligation, and more specifically the assignment of the claim.

In a third part, questions of proof will be addressed.

The study of special contracts such as sale, business, lease and mandate constitutes the fourth and last part of the course.

The subject will be taught taking into account all the reforms introduced by the laws of 13 April 2019 (Book 8 of the Civil Code) and 28 April 2022 (Book 5 of the Civil Code).