Acceptance

see also: Etymology of Acceptance

In French Civil law, the acceptance is the Consentement of a person (called acceptor) to a offers contract which was made to him. It is a unilateral act of will, emanating from the recipient of a pollicitation, which shows the intention of this one to conclude the contract.

Under the terms of the principle of contractual Freedom, that which accepts must always be free to conclude or not to conclude the contract: it could not thus be constrained to accept the offer: it must be able to be summarized with simple yes , which will produce two effects:

the counter-proposal will make null and void the initial offer, i.e. the contract which binds the parts must have the same contents. However, so that exists this divergence as for the contents of the contract, the divergence between the offer and acceptance must be perceptible and translate a true dissension. It would not be the case if acceptance did nothing but specify the object of the contract, without modifying it, or pointing out the existence of a legal provision applicable commun run in any assumption

. There would be then, actually, an global agreement. Conversely, there is final agreement firm and when, after a telephone contact, a telegram of conformation of the agreement was sent, which mentions neither the term “option”, nor the condition of an administrative authorization.

As long as the phase of formation of the contract lasts, each protagonsites has to play turn-with-turn the role of pollicitant and acceptor, so that the offer appears a posteriori like “the penultimate demonstration of will”. Absence of agreement, it will have to be deduced that the contract was not formed.

Thus, in the Sale contract, there is no assent if there is no agreement on the sold thing, or on the price.

The contract is formed since the parts are of agreement on its essential components:

either that they are objectively essential components;
either that they are held for such according to the will of the parts.

The contract is thus not formed as from the moment when an additional formality was carried out;

the inaccuracy of the modes of payment of the price;
the silence observed on the methods of execution: the recipient of an offer is thus not obliged to accept it.

Thus, the owner of a ground, which does not have any utility of it, can refuse to sell it, even for triple of its value. A Consommateur is also free to cease supplying itself in a tradesman, without to make a Abus right.

There exist nevertheless 2 exceptions to this principle: for example, a French notary is held to lend its ministry when it is necessary , and is thus obliged to lend its contest to write a Acte authenticates. Nevertheless, this solution is discussed if there is only one monopoly in fact .

Certaines provisions prohibits in particular the refusal to contract for social and political considerations:

the law of September 1st, 1948 prohibited the owners from refusing to rent certain buildings because of the number of children of the candidate tenant.
the article L 412-2 al. 1st (new article) of the Labor regulation interdict with an employer to take into account the membership of a trade union or the exercise of an trade-union activity to take its decisions .
the articles and 1° of the Penal code sanction three years of imprisonment and of: 45000 Euro S of amends the refusal of the supply of a good or a service to a person at a rate of its origin, of its sex, its its not-membership or its membership, its trade-union activity, its political opinion, its age, its sexual orientation, its manners, its genetic characteristic, its handicap, its health condition, its patronym, its physical appearance, her pregnancy, family circumstances, true or supposed, with an ethnos group, a nation, a race or a given religion . The article 3° in the same way sanctions the refusal of the recruiting of a candidate paid for the same reasons.

The externalization of acceptance

The form of acceptance

Extent of acceptance

Legal mode

The time to accept

Problems were posed, at the time of a stop of the Court of appeal, as for knowing if the contract were formed at the time of the emission of acceptance or that of the reception of this acceptance.

In the species, a company had concluded a contract with another being committed buying to him during 3 years a certain quantity of fuel. This contract provided that the representative of the first company was to return his acceptance within 30 day so that this one is valid, and that to exceed this date, the contract would not hold any more. Acceptance arrived according to the sender in time, the receiver of sound with dimensions affirmed not to have received acceptance before the deadline. This is why the latter considered that the contract did not take place to be, and consequently did not respect not its engagements. The Court of appeal will affirm that there was exchange of assents, not by the reception but by the emission of acceptance, which wants to say that the act becomes perfect.

This stop will set up the theory of the emission and the reception , without to give a clear answer. This jurisprudence according to the doctrines, does not seem clear in practice, the courts dealing with the substance of a case privileging the research of the will of the parts.

Right of repentance

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