Dealing with power in contract : a proposal of criteria for controlling the exercise of discretionary powers in franchising

• Main Author: Ludwig, Marcos de Campos.
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 2006
• Subjects: Contracts.; Franchises (Retail trade) > Law and legislation.
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=101821

The granting of a range of discretionary powers to the franchisor shows the hierarchical face, besides the market or contractual face, of franchising and similar networks. Dealing with power-related contractual problems within these arrangements is particularly challenging, since they occupy a little explored niche in legal reasoning. In this thesis, I develop an interdisciplinary inquiry on the network concept to assess to which extent it reveals the rationalities underlying the granting of such powers. I study the typical contract law categories of control of the exercise of individual prerogatives available both in civil law and in common law tradition. I discuss to which extent those categories are capable of controlling the exercise of discretionary powers in franchise disputes. I finally turn to public law reasoning on control of power and propose a prudent transplant of some elements of this reasoning into contract law discourse.