The Concept of Specific Performance in Civil Law

Specific Performance in the Draft Common Frame of Reference

“…Providing the courts with the power to grant orders of specific performance will shift the burden of quantifying the damage and avoiding any excessive burden on the debtor to the parties who are able to substitute the specific performance order by their postdispute settlement.1 66 That being the case, the debtor would be able to buy out his duty to perform the contract, thus permitting efficient breaches at the end of the day. Leaving the function of quantifying the damage to the parties would also have a distributional effect, partially allocating the price that was proposed by a third-party to the original creditor.'…”

“…65 One of the particularities of the French law is that the specific performance is secured by the imposition of a mechanism of coercion called astreinte. 66 Astreinte consists in imposing a considerably high judicial fine, 'not depending upon damages,' 67 on the debtor who refuses to execute specifically his obligations under the contract. The amount of astreinte is in direct proportion to the time during which the debtor was reluctant to perform his contractual obligations.…”

The Transaction Costs of Semi-Public Institutions: Railway History as a Challenge for Coase

“…328 For more information on the doctrine of specific performance in various jurisdictions, cf. Catalano (1997), Clark & Clarke (2000), p. 1140-1165, Cuncannon (2004), Schwartz (1979), and Szladits (1955). 329 A sample of literature in the field of revelation mechanisms was cited above, in a footnote to the discussion of Hart & Moore (1988).…”

“…535 Always more the visionary than the PR prodigy, Stephenson had the added disadvantage of having to divide his time between the preparation of Liverpool & 529 The classic source on the early history of the Liverpool & Manchester is Carlson (1969). 530 Cf.…”