Study And Analysis On The Doctrine Of Anticipatory Breach Of Contract In Anglo-American Law System

The doctrine of anticipatory breach of contract originated from England in mid 19th century, which is established in Hochster v. De La Tour (1853). It is the nature of the doctrine, that is to say, the characteristic of economic and efficient made the development of the doctrine, and put the doctrine into the statute and convention concerned.Notwithstanding Chinese legal scholars began to know and study this doctrine after early 1990s and the contract of China has adopted the doctrine of anticipatory breach in 1999 as well. However, there still exist a lot of misunderstandings and confusions in the works of Chinese scholars. This article tries to clarify the fundamental concepts concerned and draw out the figure in the implement of the doctrine in British and U.S. on the ground of the research into the substantial cases.This article includes three chapters. In the first chapter, the doctrine's basic conceptions and principles have been discussed firstly, and draw the conclusion that the term of "anticipatory breach "is a mis-guided term in it's Chinese translation. Then, the two modes of the anticipatory breach have been clarified, which has been long time misunderstood in China. It is surprise that the term "explicit anticipatory breach "and "implied anticipatory breach" is so popular in China but barely used in British and America who just established the doctrine. At last, it is pointed out that the aim of the doctrine to promote the society to be more economic and efficient makes the doctrine accepted and developed.The second chapter concerns about the one mode of anticipatory breach-anticipatory repudiation. Firstly, the conditions and the characteristic of this mode have been discussed. Then, the methods to remedy the contract are followed. Consequently, the relevant rules in civil law countries have been compared, especially with the Germany civil law and its revised civil law in 2000. At last, the relevant regulations provided in P.R.C Contract Law have been interpreted and made clear.The last chapter focuses on the other mode of anticipatory breach-anticipatory inability to perform. Just like the second chapter, the premises and characteristic and the methods in this mode to protect the aggrieved party have been discussed firstly. Then, the great discrepancies are pointed out after compared the doctrine in U.K and in U.S. Moreover, the two modes of anticipatory breach have been...