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But the bank as a company should be expected to know what it signs and so should not be protected from abusive clauses.

SEMW 13y ago
I disagree. Penalty clauses* have been unenforceable at common law for long before actual consumer protection legislation was even thought of. I'd be pretty leery of destroying such a good principle, backed by centuries of common law contractual tradition, just to single out banks and make penalty clauses enforceable against them. *Penalty clauses are ones that specify excessive damages, to punish someone who breaches a contract -- as opposed to "liquidated damages" clauses, that specify damages which pre-estimate the loss that you'll suffer if I breach the contract, which are allowed.
- freeman478 13y ago
  Thanks for the informed comment. So OK penalty clauses are really abusives but what about simply granting oneself favorable terms (like guaranteed interest rates, free services, etc.) ?
doktrin 13y ago
> But the bank as a company should be expected to know what it signs I disagree. This is one of those instances where I believe it's more important to preserve an equitable standard rather than penalize someone simply for being bigger. Let's say hypothetically that the courts agree with you, and that in Russia the legal system is strongly based on precedent as it is in the US (I don't know anything about the Russian legal system). Would any company be exposed to this manner of small-print tweaking? Would this include LLCs as well as corporations? What if an office supplier injects ridiculous terms into an agreement it signs with a corner grocery store, imposing 6 figure termination fees, and prices that increase exponentially every week? How about a web hosting agreement between a hosting provider and a startup, granting the hosting provider full IP rights to anything hosted on their servers? These may not appear to be comparable to the David & Goliath-esque situation of a credit company and an individual, but I'm pretty sure this is not really a can of worms anyone wants to open.
- dgudkov 13y ago
  >in Russia the legal system is strongly based on precedent It's not. Russian legal system is based on codes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Russia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Russia

SEMW 13y ago

I disagree. Penalty clauses* have been unenforceable at common law for long before actual consumer protection legislation was even thought of. I'd be pretty leery of destroying such a good principle, backed by centuries of common law contractual tradition, just to single out banks and make penalty clauses enforceable against them. *Penalty clauses are ones that specify excessive damages, to punish someone who breaches a contract -- as opposed to "liquidated damages" clauses, that specify damages which pre-estimate the loss that you'll suffer if I breach the contract, which are allowed.

freeman478 13y ago
Thanks for the informed comment. So OK penalty clauses are really abusives but what about simply granting oneself favorable terms (like guaranteed interest rates, free services, etc.) ?

doktrin 13y ago

> But the bank as a company should be expected to know what it signs I disagree. This is one of those instances where I believe it's more important to preserve an equitable standard rather than penalize someone simply for being bigger. Let's say hypothetically that the courts agree with you, and that in Russia the legal system is strongly based on precedent as it is in the US (I don't know anything about the Russian legal system). Would any company be exposed to this manner of small-print tweaking? Would this include LLCs as well as corporations? What if an office supplier injects ridiculous terms into an agreement it signs with a corner grocery store, imposing 6 figure termination fees, and prices that increase exponentially every week? How about a web hosting agreement between a hosting provider and a startup, granting the hosting provider full IP rights to anything hosted on their servers? These may not appear to be comparable to the David & Goliath-esque situation of a credit company and an individual, but I'm pretty sure this is not really a can of worms anyone wants to open.

dgudkov 13y ago
>in Russia the legal system is strongly based on precedent It's not. Russian legal system is based on codes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Russia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Russia