Study On The Contract For The Benefit Of Third Party

The doctrine of privity of contract means that the effect of contract only involves the parties of the contract not any the third party. The doctrine of privity of contract has been perceived as the great foundation stone of contract theory system, which embodies the spirit of autonomy of private law. But with the development of economy, the contract relationship is becoming much more complicated, which has led to an awkward situation in practice, i.e. the person who suffered from loss or damage has no right to bring a lawsuit against the defendant of the contract, while the party who has the right to enforce the contract, is unwilling to do that because of no damage. To resolve this problem, contract for the benefit of third party has been set up or acknowledged in legislation and in practice as well, and rights of third party beneficiaries have been well protected both in the common law and continental law counties. But there aren't the regulations about the contract for the benefit of third party in China, which leads to various of difficulties in applying to the law in judicial practice.The paper begins with credit card crisis and raises the topic of this article. Then it discusses the conception and quality of contract for the benefit of third party, introduces the relationship between contract for the benefit of third party and privity of contract, analyzes the value of the system; and compares respectively with the similarly systems, makes a clear definition to the contract for the benefit of third party. Besides, the paper analyzes contract for the benefit of third party abroad, studies the relevant legislation and practice so as to provide a useful reference to our country. At last, the paper specificly analyses the present situation of this contract from the view of legislation and jurisdiction of our country, and concludes the clause 64 in our country's Contract Law is not the real rules of the contract for the benefit of third party. In fact, there is not the general rule about contract for the benefit of third party in our country,so the author shows her own legislative suggestions to our establishment of the system.