Comprehansive Studies on Service Contracts

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There ar two ways of approaches to the studies on service contracts. One is the specified transaction approach in which we come close to the essential issues inherent while discussing the problems arising from the real particular type of transaction. The other is the general provisions approach in which we survey real problems while examining those issues at the level of general provisions of obligation law or contract law. In 1996, we mainly did the former approach, and in 1997, we mainly did the latter approach.Business-to-consumer service contracts are quite different from Business-to-business service contracts in issues in practices. Professor Matsumoto took charge of B-to-C contracts including education, aesthetic saloon, financial and telecommunication contracts, while Professor Nakata took charge of B-to-B contracts including franchise and distributorship contracts.In order to accomplish the said tasks, we made interviews with business men and lawyers involved in service contracts, collected legal materials relating to service contracts written in Japanese as well as foreign languages, and discussed a variety of issues almost monthly.Following those specified transaction approach, we analyzed those general issues such as legal reasoning of midway cancellation right of continuous service contracts, regulation of unfair contract terms, regulation of unfair inducement to service contracts on the side of consumer contracts and asymmetry of obligations, value of relation, units of obligation and complex contract, and development risk. These issues are quite important for the development of general theory of contract law in future, although the Civil Code of Japan unfortunately is lacking of the express provisions relating to these issues.