Information Duties and Precontractual Good Faith

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ABSTRACT: This article deals with the relationship between information duties and the good faith principle within the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). After an introduction regarding the origin of the Common Frame of Reference (CFR) and its end, the author explains the meaning of the concurrence between the Principles of European Law (PEL) and the acquis communautaire. Both of these sources deal with precontractual duties although at a different level. Whereas the PEL set up a general duty to act in good faith during negotiations, on this point the acquis concentrates on duties of information with regard to the consumer. The opinion of the author is that the generalization of these duties, which has been operated by the DCFR, is a good result as well as the insertion of them in the more general good faith principle. If information is loyalty, it cannot but be a general duty, at least in European legislation, which shows to have gone ahead in comparison with many national legal systems in Europe. There are also situations in which information has become contents of the contract. As to the method of connecting the acquis with PEL, this article tries to demonstrate that the double inspiration of the DCFR could only be satisfied by at the same time giving room to the task of the acquis and to the necessity of coherence, which was the preoccupation of PECL and now of PEL. A clear example of this is the new meaning that the original rule on negotiations contrary to good faith, originally adopted by PECL and inherited by PEL, has acquired following the flowing together of the last ones and the acquis; now the violation of duties of information also makes a negotiation contrary to good faith.