Pre-contractual objective Good Faith and information. Duties of information

Abstract

In the preliminary phase of contracting, the fundamental importance of information, and the information exchanged by the pre-contractual parties, is undoubted. Parties, by entering a contract, seek to pursue their interest, to maximise their welfare. Based on the information it possesses, a party decides to conclude or not to conclude the contract; if the party concludes the contract, the pre-contractual information spills over into the content of the contract, influencing the contractual agreements, the reciprocal performances established, the conditions under which the contract is concluded. This is not a work of economic analysis, but rather a legal work; economic analysis is used exclusively to highlight problems, to which the rules of the Civil Code provide a solution. The pre-contractual problems in the light of economic analysis, arising from the asymmetries of information between the parties at the time of the conclusion of the contract, and the solutions to them provided by the rules of the civil code, have already been examined by the writer in a fragmentary way during studies concerning representation and the insurance contract. The survey will briefly examine information, and especially pre-contractual information, and the problems connected with it, in the light of economic analysis; it will then focus on the rules of the Civil Code that deal with pre-contractual information and the problems connected with it and will try to find solutions to them.

Keywords

• contracts
• information
• legal systems
• civil law
• civil liability