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Unjustified Enrichment:

Key Issues in Comparative Perspective

In recent years unjustified enrichment has been one of the most

intellectuallyvital areas of private law. There is, however, still no

unanimityamong civil-law and common-law legal systems about how

to structure this important branch of the law of obligations. Several

keyissues are considered comparativelyhere, including grounds for

recoveryof enrichment, defences, third-partyenrichment, as well as

proprietaryand taxonomic questions. Two contributors deal with each

topic, one a representative of a common-law system, the other a

representative of a civil-law or mixed system. This approach

illuminates not just similarities or differences between systems, but

also what different systems can learn from one another. In an area of

law whose territoryis still partiallyuncharted and whose borders are

contested, such comparative perspectives will be valuable for both

academic analysis of the law and its development by the courts.

david johnston is an advocate and HonoraryProfessor of Law,

Universityof Edinburgh. His publications include Roman Law in Context

(1999) and Prescription and Limitation (1999).

reinhard zimmermann is Professor of Private Law, Roman Law

and Comparative Legal Historyat the Universityof Regensburg. His

publications include The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the

Civilian Tradition (1990; paperback edition, 1996) and Roman Law,

ContemporaryLaw, European Law: The Civilian Tradition Today (2001).

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Unjustified Enrichment:

Key Issues in Comparative Perspective

Edited by

David Johnston

Reinhard Zimmermann

iii

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Contents

List of contributors page viii

Preface xi

Table of cases xii

List of abbreviations xxxiii

I Introduction

1 Unjustified enrichment: surveying the landscape 3

david johnston and reinhard zimmermann

II Enrichment ‘without legal ground’or unjust

factor approach

2 Unjust factors and legal grounds 37

sonja meier

3 In defence of unjust factors 76

thomas krebs

III Failure of consideration

4 Failure of consideration: myth and meaning

in the English law of res

5 Failure of consideration 128

titution 103

graham virgo

robin evans-jones and katrin kruse

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IV Duress and fraud

6 In defence of unjust factors: a study of rescission

for duress, fraud and exploitation 159

mindy chen-wishart

7 Fraud, duress and unjustified enrichment:

a civil-law perspective 194

jacques du plessis

V Change of position

8 Restitution without enrichment? Change of position

and Wegfall der Bereicherung 227

james gordley

9 Unwinding mutual contracts: restitutio in

integrum v. the defence of change of position 243

phillip hellwege

VI Illegality

10 The role of illegality in the English law

of unjust enrichment 289

w. j. swadling

11 Illegality as defence against unjust enrichment claims 310

gerhard dannemann

VII Encroachment and restitution for wrongs

12 Reflections on the role of restitutionary damages

to protect contractual expectations 327

janet o’sullivan

13 Encroachments: between private and public 348

hanoch dagan

VIII Improvements

14 Mistaken improvements and the restitution calculus 369

andrew kull