ABSTRACT
In the last three chapters, we have looked at the sort of terms which are included in a contract and those which are excluded. It will have become clear that this is an area in which the legislature has become increasingly involved and the judiciary progressively more interventionist in stance. As notions of equality of bargaining power and fairness have captured the imaginations of social reformers, lawyers have had to become involved in much more sophisticated analyses of contractual terms than might have been anticipated during the classical period. No longer content to accept that laissezfaire philosophies promote the interests of all in society, they have had to engage in debate about what constitutes acceptable behaviour in a contract. The restriction of exclusion clauses is one way in which such concerns have manifested themselves in legislative and judicial policies. The area is one in which concerns about individual terms in particular contracts have been considered alongside debate about the wider impact of such clauses on the fair and efficient operation of the market more generally. In this chapter, we look at these same issues from a different angle, set of doctrines and legislation. What marks this chapter out from the last is the additional focus on behaviour within the business community and across business communities in Europe.
