Articles Vincent Forray Property Structures Underlying Contract * (The Proprietary Properties of Contract) Abstract: This paper attempts to show that, among the main conceptions of contract in civilian legal traditions, some of them remain ideologically grounded on a proprietary concept that cannot be reduced to the right of property, legally speaking. This proposal starts with the observation that in contract law, there are some rules, some interpretations, some theoretical discourses and intellectual constructions that imply ‘property structures’. What I mean by a property struc- ture is a theoretical structure that has to do with the idea of property but which is not considered as a right of ownership and, furthermore, which is not to be legally treated as such. Property structures have other functions apart from those usually associated with the issues raised by the right of property, although they are vehicles of proprietary ideas in contract law. Property structures have underlying functions. They inform contract law with a system of values. They draw invisible guidelines for contract law interpretation. In this paper, two occurrences of property structures are identified: property structures underlying the concept of contract as a transfer of rights and damages for breach of contract. Résumé: Ce texte tente de montrer que certaines des conceptions dominantes du contrat dans les traditions juridiques civilistes reposent sur un concept propriétaire qu’on ne saurait réduire au droit de propriété entendu strictement. Une telle proposition se fonde sur l’observation de ce qu’il existe en droit des contrats des règles, des interprétations, des discours théoriques et des constructions intellec- tuelles qui supposent une structure propriétaire. Par ‘structure propriétaire’,j’en- tends une structure théorique qui a à voir avec la propriété mais qui ne saurait être assimilée au droit propriété et, surtout, qui n’a pas à être juridiquement traitée comme tel. Les structures propriétaires me semblent avoir d’autres fonctions que celles associées au droit de propriété, quoiqu’elles soient bien des véhicules de l’idée propriétaire en droit des contrats. Leurs fonctions sont, en quelque sorte, * Thanks to Avichay Sharon for his invaluable help. I also would like to thank participants at the Secola conference (7–8 june 2013) for their questions and remarks on this paper, particularly Professor Stefan Grundmann, Professor Sjef van Erp and Professor Hugh Collins. Many thanks to my friend Ruth Sefton-Green for her remarks on this work. DOI 10.1515/eplj-2013-0017 EPLJ 2013; 2(3): 220–239 Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University Authenticated Download Date | 5/31/15 4:40 AM