Economic Crisis – Contractual Relations in Hungary and in Europe
Economic Crisis – Contractual Relations in Hungary and in Europe

Summary/Abstract: With the conclusion of a contract of civil law, the parties may take some reasonably unforeseeable economic risks that might disrupt the synallagmatic character of the contract; therefore, disproportionate, unviable extra burden may appear in the contractual relations on the side of some parties. The sudden increase of inflation or prices, the intense reduction of the purchasing power of wages, the radical changes in the relations between supply and demand, the collapse of the product market, the insolvency of the economic actors (especially in case of a contractual party), the negative changes of the market and financial relations and the production and liquidity problems of the economic sector shall result in this incalculable risk. In case of maintaining the original contractual content, an economic crisis affecting the whole economy and society of one or more countries may cause any or all the parties to take inequitable and intolerable risks. In the following, we intend to analyse those reasons in the Hungarian judicial practice that are based on the Hungarian Civil Code and referred by the parties in order to get rid of the contractual obligation in the name of economic/business risk. Then we examine the importance of economic/business risk in those contractual relations that cannot be found in the Hungarian Civil Code and finally, we make a conclusion with respect to the current European regulations.

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