Neoformalism: from structure to function

Abstract

The mass production format has determined the phenomenon of mass contracting, which requires the predisposition of contractual schemes, inevitably formal. Nowadays, written form no longer fulfils the function of guaranteeing the solemnity of certain acts, but ensures the certainty of the contracting parties, particularly the adhering party, with regard to the general clauses of the content of the contract. Today, form is more at the service of the content of the contract than of the actual conclusion of the contract. Neoformalism has first of all crept into certain specialised sectors (credit, financing and insurance contracts), then into the vast field of consumer contracts (consumer sale and purchase, consumer credit, etc.) and company contracts (concession, agency, franchising, outsourcing, etc.), ending up in the new information technologies. The primary objective of this new perspective is expressed through the attempt to make both economic operations and the market itself more transparent, guaranteeing certainty and fluidity to legal traffic. In this sense, it must be recognised that this new formalism, apart from helping to design the modern profiles of contract law, contributes to the articulation of the complex system of controls of the current economic dynamics, at the same time as it allows the rebalancing of contractual positions in the market.