Abuse of Bargaining Power in the Contractual Process: Regulation by Private Law

在合同过程中滥用谈判能力的现象比比皆是。该项目的目的是在规范这种滥用方面寻求私法理论。1.私法与行政法规的分离与结合在日本法律中，滥用议价权历来被认为属于行政法规的范畴，作为不公平交易行为，由《反垄断法》进行规制，并由公平交易委员会执行。私法虽然很少进行分析，但也可在有效管制这种滥用方面发挥作用。本项目试图通过研究这些私法规则如何以及为何在普通法传统中出现来填补这一空白。第一部分讨论了“先存责任规则”的发展。2.私人订购与法律之间的紧张关系私人订购中存在着滥用谈判权的现象。因此，一般的问题是，何时以及如何允许国家干预。本项目进行了初步研究，以回答这个难题。3.比较和法律的分析为了在具体的纠纷背景下研究这一问题，进行了三个独立的研究：（1）版权被许可人对第三方和/或破产受托人的保护;（2）在不一致的情况下，现有的补救措施对卖方/买方的机会主义行为的影响;以及（3）在争议当事人诉诸替代性争议解决办法时防止法律的时效期限届满。

Abuse of bargaining power in the contractual process is abundant. The purpose of this project was to pursue a private law theory in regulating such abuse. The project was conducted on the following three fronts:1.Disjunctions and Conjunctions of Private Law and Administrative RegulationsAbuse of bargaining power has traditionally been considered to be within the realm of administrative regulations under Japanese law: it has been regulated by the Antimonopoly Law as an unfair trade practice, and enforced by the Fair Trade Commission. Private law, although analysis has been scant, may also play a role in effective regulation of such abuse. This project attempted to fill in the vacuum by studying how and why such private law rules have emerged in the common law tradition. Preliminary focus has been placed on the development of the "pre-existing duty rule".2.The Tension between Private Ordering and LawAbuse of bargaining power occurs in the context of private ordering. The general question therefore is when and how the state is allowed to intervene. This project conducted a preliminary study to answer this conundrum. It has profited from recent studies on private ordering and social norms.3.Comparative and Legal AnalysisTo examine the problem in a concrete dispute setting three separate researches have been conducted: (1)Protection of copyright licensees against third parties and/or bankruptcy trustees; (2)the impact of available remedies on the opportunistic behaviors of sellers/buyers in case of non-conformity; and (3)the prevention of expiration of legal limitation periods while disputing parties are resorting to alternative dispute resolution.