Учебный год 22-23 / Alpa_Italian_Private_Law_University_of_Texas

aware of certain circumstances, or not been influenced by a fraud or duress by the other or a third party: in other words, if the will of the two parties, or one of them, had not been vitiated.

When this happens, when consent is distorted, a defect is said to occur. If A believes that the watch B is trying to sell him is made of gold, and is induced to buy it and finds out later that it is in fact only gold-plated, the sale contract can be annulled at A’s request, because his will has been vitiated by mistake. If by means of threats C obliges D to sell him some land, D’s will is vitiated by duress. If E induces F to make him a loan, convincing him with false documents that he is completely solvent, when he is in fact on the verge of bankruptcy, F’s consent is vitiated by E’s fraud.

Mistake, duress and fraud are ‘defects of consent’ and render the transaction voidable (Art 1427 civil code).

Mistake is a false appraisal of reality. It is a concept that can be either impeditive or a fatal defect.

Impeditive mistake concerns the declaration, that is, the way consent is made manifest, such as writing 865 instead of the intended 875 or mistranslating from a foreign language.

Fatal mistake, on the other hand, concerns the formation of consent itself, for example, believing a fake Ming vase to be genuine.

The same set of rules applies to both impeditive and fatal mistake. In the previous code, only the former, considered the more serious, rendered the transaction void.

Mistake can be of fact, relating to external circumstances (such as the gold watch and the Ming vase), or of law when it concerns the existence, scope or applicability of a legal rule. As an example of the latter, A believes he has bought a piece of building land but later discovers it has been designated public open space and so cannot be built on. It may be said that a mistake of law concerns the legal nature of the subject matter. Like mistake of fact, it can only be grounds for voidability when it was the only or principal reason for the contract.

Mistake can also be unilateral, where the consent of only one party is vitiated, or bilateral, where the consent of both parties is vitiated, but in different ways. For example, A believes that the vase is a Ming, while B equally mistakenly thinks it is Chinese, but from the eighteenth century. Common mistake occurs when both parties’ errors amount to the same mistake, such as if the vase was from the fifteenth century or indeed was a perfect copy and not an original. The reliance principle does not apply to bilateral and common mistake.

In the former code there was another feature of mistake: excusability, which obtained if a person of normal diligence would not have avoided falling into it, and so no blame attached to it. Mistake in the current code is evaluated according to different criteria, those of fundamentality and patency.

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Mistake is fundamental in these situations:

(a)when it affects the nature or the subject matter of the transaction (e.g. a watch is made of silver and not of platinum). A wishes to buy a used vehicle. He visits B’s garage and sees vehicle X. He then test drives vehicle Y and buys it, thinking it is vehicle X. The mistake is as to the identity of the subject matter. The mistake is fundamental, similarly, when it affects characteristics of the subject matter which a reasonable observer would consider crucial for consent or where specific circumstances make them so;

(b)when it affects the identity or characteristics of the other contracting party, in cases where one or the other are crucial for consent. A engages B to edit a daily newspaper with the proviso that he had never compromised with fascism. He later finds that B had been purged. Obviously, not all characteristics have sufficient importance, only those which have a practical effect, bearing in mind the circumstances (for example, whether the other party is solvent or a bad payer). Identity and circumstances are particularly important in transactions stipulated to be intuitu personae, that is, made with people in whom enough confidence must be placed to allow them to be entrusted with especially delicate tasks;

(c)when, in cases where there is a mistake of law, it was the main or only reason for undertaking the transaction. Mistake of law must not be confused with ignorance of the law, which is never an excuse. It is not always fundamental, either: only when it was the main or only reason for undertaking the transaction. Suppose A is a foreign tourist who buys a painting by Raphael to take home with him. He then discovers that Italian law prohibits the export of works of art. He had no wish to circumvent the law, but he intended to buy only if he could take the picture back with him. The mistake negates the sole reason for the contract.

It will be noted that mistaken reasons are not listed among the varieties of fundamental mistake. It is not usually legally relevant and we shall see why below. (A buys a flat in Rome, thinking he is going to be transferred there, but does not say so to the vendor. The transfer does not materialise, but A cannot do anything about the mistake as it affects his motives for deciding to purchase.) Mistaken reasons are relevant only in testamentary dispositions, when it appears from the instrument and is the only reason why the disposition was made (Art 624(2) civil code), and in gifts again where it appears from the instrument and is the only reason which induced the donor to exercise his liberality (Art 787 civil code).

7.3.2. Duress

Duress takes the form of threats or undue pressure that induce a party to enter into the transaction. Moral duress (inducing fear) is distinguished from physical (being bodily forced to sign). Only the former is a defect of consent and as such renders the transaction void; the latter is, however, evidence of an absence of consent, and as such constitutes the absence of an indispensable element, from which nullity and not the voidability of the transaction will follow. The difference between nullity and voidability will be examined below at para 13.2.

To be legally relevant moral or psychological duress must amount to a serious and unjustified threat, that is, one sufficient to ‘so impress a reasonable person as to make him fear serious and unjustified injury or damage to his person or property’. Regard is had to a person’s age, sex and condition (Art 1435 civil code). In short, not every threat or pressure will suffice: it has to provoke fear in a ‘reasonable’ person in order to be grounds for voidability. Thus the test is to consider whether a reasonable person of the same age and sex as the complainant would have felt compelled by the other party. Fear deriving from an exaggerated deference towards the other party is not sufficient grounds (Arts 1437, 122(1) civil code).

Duress is always serious, even when carried out by a non-party to the transaction, and it is not necessary for the non-party to be in collusion with the other party: duress is unacceptable in itself and is to be suppressed and punished by law.

Duress is also serious when it is directed against a spouse, descendant or ascendant of the contracting party. If directed against another person, duress may make the transaction voidable at the court’s discretion (Art 1436 civil code).

To count as duress, a threat must also be unjustified, that is, distinct from a threat to exercise a right.

7.3.3. Fraud

Fraud is any deception, simulation, dishonest behaviour or trick which serves to deceive the other party into concluding the transaction. Contractual fraud denotes precisely an intention to deceive. Extra-contractual fraud on the other hand consists of an intention to cause harm (Art 2043 civil code).

Fraud can be by commission if it results from a positive act, such as when A tells B that the watch is made of gold and inscribes it with a hallmark, even though it is in fact only gold-plated. Fraud is by omission when it consists of silence (A does nothing to disabuse B of his evident misapprehension that the gold-plated watch is solid gold).

Fraud requires an intention to deceive, but it is not possible to examine in detail the internal psychological processes giving rise to the

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deception. Hence it is necessary to examine the external circumstances from an objective point of view.

Fraud can be further divided into fundamental and incidental forms. It is fundamental when the trick used by the dishonest party is such that, had it not been employed, the other party would not have concluded the contract (Art 1439 civil code). It is incidental when it is insufficient to vitiate consent: the innocent party would still have concluded the contract, but on different terms (Art 1440 civil code). An example: A has an unshakeable intention to adorn his house with a Ming vase; he would thus certainly have been willing to buy the vase offered by the antique dealer in any case, because he found the designs so magnificent, but he would have paid a much lower price had he known that it was a perfect copy and not an original.

The consequences of these two types of fraud are different. Incidental fraud does not entail avoiding the contract. The contract is valid, but the party who acted in bad faith is liable to damages (Art 1440 civil code). With fundamental fraud the contract is void and the fraudulent party is also liable to pay damages to his victim.

It should also be noted that when fraud is responsible for mistake by a party, the contract can be avoided even if the mistake itself is not fundamental and patent, because it goes to the root of consent.

In unilateral transactions reliance is not protected, because there is no other party. Regard is had, therefore, to the will of the transactor, and to the criterion of fundamentality. Of the two, the exercise of will becomes the predominant factor in whether an interest deserves protection. In some cases it is the determining factor, as when a testator had a mistaken reason for making a disposition. In these cases, however, ‘reason’ is not to be understood in any psychological sense, difficult to assess, but in an objective sense, as a circumstance that has influenced the transactor’s will (Art 624 civil code).

7.4. Object and reasons.The contractual type

7.4.1. Concepts

The object is its scope, what the transaction is about. When A sells his car to B the scope of the contract of sale consists of the exchange of the thing (the car) for the selling price (say, €2000). When employer C takes on worker D the scope of the employment contract consists of the exchange of C’s labour (as driver, doorman or secretary) for his or her remuneration (wages or salary).

The object is thus the economic function which the concluded contract fulfils. In the economic operation involved in sale and purchase, the object is exchange. In a will, a unilateral act, the object is the

distribution of property after the testator’s death. For a gift, the object is the enrichment of the donee, and so on. It is thus an element present in a consistent manner in all transactions of a particular type, nature and category.

Object should be distinguished from reasons, which are individual motivations, or the circumstances inducing the individual to undertake the transaction, such as when A sells his car in order to raise money to buy a house, or C makes a gift to D because D is about to marry, or E decides to take F on because his business is expanding and so he needs extra workers. F may be seeking work because he no longer wishes to depend on his parents’ goodwill and wants to live independently of his family.

Reasons are too many and varied to enumerate, and one party’s very often differ from those of the other party. They may be defined as factors extraneous to the object.

The distinction between object and reason is not, however, as simple as might appear. Indeed it can vary according to whether reasons are considered as objective circumstances (and not merely internal psychological phenomena) or else an object can take on a subjective dimension as the manifestation of will.

7.4.2. Characteristics of the object

The object must be legal and deserving of protection. It is not lawful when it contravenes mandatory rules (for example, a lease for rural land that does not safeguard the farmer’s interests in conformity with the relevant statute) or is contrary to public order (such as a contract impeding a candidate from standing for election) or to public morals (a contract for prostitution: Art 1343 civil code).

The object must not be nugatory, that is, it must produce some economic utility so as to give rise to interests which are, as mentioned above, deserving of protection (Art 1322(2) civil code).

The object is an essential element of the transaction; it must always be present in order for the transaction to be valid. There are some types of legal act whose object, albeit present, is (to employ the usual terms) severed, earmarked or immaterial, that is, they do not take account of the grounds on which the act was concluded. As a rule, in bills of exchange no account is taken of the object for which payment is made: it could have been to pay for a loan, for a refrigerator or what have you. In these cases, a contract with severed objects is termed abstract.

‘Object’ can be conceived of in various senses. It can be seen in a subjective sense as the motivation behind an act of disposition, or in an objective sense, as a recurring feature of all acts of a given type. It can be seen as a feature of private business relations used as a control instrument

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by the legal system to select which interests to deem worthy or unworthy of protection, a feature that can thus be said to give the object a ‘social’ dimension. It can also be seen as a basis for contractual risk, as an objective ground for justifying, in the domain of private relations, the assumption of risk by the contracting parties. Thus are definitions of object numerous.

On occasion an object has been used to establish the binding character of a promise – a promise without an object is not legally valid – to establish the lawfulness of prestations provided for in a contract and the identification of defensible interests.

The 1942 code encompasses an idea of object understood as a ‘socio-economic function’ of a transaction: economic because the transaction is understood as a deal that brings profit to the parties, social because it permits the regulatory regime to exercise control over business done in private. Transactions that are unlawful or lack an object are void, because they have no legal effect (Arts 1321, 1243, 1418 civil code).

Whereas the socio-economic function theory accentuates on one hand the collective aspects of control, it provides no grounds for another significant feature of the object, the private aspect, since an object also justifies the conclusion of private dealings between the parties.

If conformity with collective interests is the only matter taken into account in controlling the object, to the exclusion of its adequacy to bring about the exchange, such control overlooks all purely private (as opposed to public or collective) interests. What the parties have contemplated and the expectations and so on that they intended to realise are important and touch the object of the transaction. Hence the theory that includes these private interests within the ambit of legal control and defines the object as an individual-economic function of a transaction.

7.4.3. The contractual type

The object must be distinguished from the type, that is, the schema, the distinguishing character of the transaction. The type of a sale contract is usually manifested by the exchange of an object against a purchase price, but there are other varieties that conform to this type, such as guarantees, duties to deliver and so on. The type is therefore also the category to which the transaction belongs (sales, transport, insurance, etc).

A type may be legal or social. It is legal if the transaction is subject to express statutory regulation (such as standard contracts in Book IV of the civil code). It is social if widely adopted in practice without there being a corresponding legal discipline. An example is the leasing contract by which an item is provided for the use of others on payment of rent, with the provision that at the end of the rental period the hirer may return the item or buy it at a reduced price. Other examples are supply contracts

and technical assistance contracts. Parties are at liberty to choose the legal type they want, or indeed to create new types (Art 1322(2) civil code). A transaction of a legal type is standard, without a legal type it is non-standard or innominate.

7.5. Sham transactions

7.5.1. Concepts and types

A sham transaction occurs when when there is a deliberate discrepancy between the will and the declaration. This discrepancy can also result from non-disclosure or when A says he wishes to sell his flat when really he has no intention of doing so. But in these cases, where the lack of candour remains in the mind and is not made explicit or revealed in other ways, it is unimportant.

With a sham transaction, however, the discrepancy is revealed because it involves an actual agreement between the parties, or between the parties and a third party, by which it is sought to make things appear as they are not. The contract by which the parties create the fiction is thus known as a sham contract or agreement. The agreement by which the real and effective intentions are set out is known as the counter-deed. The contract which the parties really intended to conclude is known as the hidden contract.

A distinction can be made between an absolute and a relative sham transaction. It is absolute when the parties declare that they wish to undertake a certain transaction, but in fact they do not wish to undertake anything. It is relative when the parties ostensibly conclude one transaction, while in reality concluding another: this is misrepresenting the nature of the contract. For example, A and B create the appearance of a sale contract, when in reality a gift is being made. Another situation is where the parties pretend to have agreed a contract between them, when in fact one of them is contracting with someone else. So if A makes a sham contract with B while in reality making a hidden contract with C, B can appear to the world as the owner of transferred property, when in fact the real assignee is C: this is misrepresentation as to parties. Finally, there is misrepresentation as to subject matter, for example, as to price, as where A and B declare the cost of a lease as €5000, when in fact €25,000 has been paid.

A sham transaction is not in itself illegal, as such pretences at agreement are not always calculated to harm others or to evade the law. For example, if A wishes to make a gift to a person of whom his family does not approve and ostensibly sells the thing to that person, the transaction is legal. In most cases, however, sham transactions are an attempt to circumvent the law; for example, payment of taxes can be

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evaded by misrepresenting the price or the nature of the contract, or similar devices can be intended to defeat creditors.

7.5.2. Effects of sham transactions

Among the effects of sham transactions it is necessary to distinguish those affecting the parties and those produced on third parties.

Sham transactions do not produce effects between the parties (Art 1414 civil code). The hidden contract has effects, since it has the formal and substantial characteristics required by the law (Art 1414(2) civil code). In the case of a sham sale which hides a gift, the gift takes effect if there has really been no payment and it is affected by a public document. In absolute sham transactions, the counter-deed can be made in any form.

There is no legislation designed to give reality priority over appearances. If there were, third parties acting on the strength of appearances would be prejudiced. The regime on sham transactions is rather complicated vis-à-vis third parties. The reliance of third parties must be protected, but there are different categories of third parties and not all are protected in the same way. The rules aim to achieve a compromise between diverse third-party interests.

7.5.3. Proof. Particular types of sham transaction

Proof is particularly significant where sham transactions are concerned. How are third parties or creditors to prove that a transaction is sham? The main evidence is furnished by the counter-deed, that is, the document in which the parties have declared their true intentions. But this document is not always available to third parties or creditors, indeed it may be jealously guarded by the parties. However, the code does not set limits on the ways third parties may prove the existence of a sham, and they may rely on other testimony. The situation is different for the parties, however. They must have the counter-deed to prove it, with just one exception relating to an illegal sham transaction: in such a case, so that the lawful may prevail over the unlawful, any kind of evidence (including testimony) is admissible to reveal a sham transaction.

A specific regime applies to sham marriage arrangements (Art 165 civil code). Third parties may prove that they are sham. A written counter-deed may be effective vis-à-vis those who are party to it only if it was made in the presence of and with the simultaneous consent of everyone involved in the marriage arrangements.

Similarly specific is the regime applying to a sham marriage. The marriage may be challenged by either of the spouses where they have agreed not to perform their marital obligations, nor to enforce the rights