ABSTRACT
There is nothing more central in the law of agency than the rules relating to the agent’s powers to bind his principal, and one might expect that this would be an area in which the legal systems of the world would long since have reached a common accord. A contract within the agent’s authority binds the principal, while one outside the authority leaves the principal unbound, generally speaking whether the contract was made in the name of the principal or that of the agent himself. The dependent or “mandate” power which is the exception in Nordic and Continental law is “actual authority” and the rule in English law, while the independent powers that are the rule in Continental law are the exceptions in England. The division between two kinds of bases of authority—one real and one seeming—appears to invite confusion even on the central question of the effect of a written “power of attorney”.
