Gain-based Remedies for Breach of Contract

<p>This book focuses on an emerging problem in English contract law: what should be done when a party has been unjustly enriched as the result of a breach of contract but there is no measurable loss suffered by said party? Two rulings are at the heart of the book: Wrotham Park Estate v Parkside Homes and Attorney-General v Blake. These two cases can be said to have established gain-based remedies in English contract law. However, the principles that underpin these remedies are not entirely clear and are subject to debate.</p><p>This book analyses these principles through the lens of compensatory and restitutionary approaches. Moreover, it applies a comparative analysis of these approaches through the lens of the civil law jurisdiction in Poland.<br></p><p>Since the term ‘compensation’ is not a universal concept, the book distinguishes between two rationales in the compensatory analysis. The first, reparative compensation, is defined as a form of monetary recompense for loss or damage actually suffered. The second, substitutive compensation, represents a monetary equivalent to a right that a person has been deprived of or denied. Both rationales require the application of a broad notion of loss in order to make gain-based remedies workable in both English and Polish law.<br></p><p>In contrast, ‘restitution’ states that a person cannot be permitted to profit from their own wrongdoing. Based on this principle, the book argues that gain-based remedies could be applied under Polish law through the rules of unjust enrichment. However, in order to do so, a broader understanding of the subtraction prerequisite (the enrichment being at the aggrieved party’s expense) would have to be adopted. The book concludes that unjust enrichment is a more natural way of implementing gain-based remedies in civil law jurisdictions.<br></p><p></p>