The Boundaries of Contract In A Global Economy; Cyberspace Contracting: Embracing Incomplete Contract Paradigm in the Wake of UCITA Experience

Here, we are confronted with issues ranging from the enforceability of a contract under the law of the jurisdiction to the limit of the liquidated damage. Let us analyze this a little further. First and foremost, does ordering from the catalog create a contract, even though no intermediate confirmation took place? By clicking the mouse, does the customer become party to an enforceable contract?

Because the parties involved in this transaction physically reside in two distinct geographical regions and are possibly governed by two different legal regimes, under what law and to what extent can the offending party be held liable for damages? And more importantly, a breach in one regime may not be the same in another regime, so how will any damages be assessed? The questions are plenty, confusions are abundant, and the search for answers becomes lost in the murky world of cyberspace contract regime, or the lack thereof. We will begin our dissection on these very issues by first discussing jurisdiction law and enforcement mechanisms.

We need to understand the two existing modalities of contract enforcement, namely public enforcement of contracts, mainly through the court system, and private enforcement of contracts, the majority through the reputational mechanism.