The chapter considers four aspects of the law of contractual interpretation in France that were affected by the reforms of the French Civil Code in 2016. It looks at the dichotomy between the subjective and objective approaches to interpretation, the codification of the dénaturation power of the Cour de cassation, the relationship between interprétation créatrice and interprétation explicative, and the application of the contra proferentem rule in the context of the interpretation of standard-form contracts. The innovations in the reforms are an improvement on the previous set of rules on interpretation. Whilst some controversies remain, the new principles address several of the long-running debates that were live before the reforms. They also bring a more modern and international approach to French contract law, which in part can be attributed to the extent to which the drafters were inspired by and drew upon a number of the international contract law instruments.

To satisfy an industrialising and industrialised Britain, huge quantities of ‘soft’ commodities - grain, cotton, coffee, cocoa, sugar and palm oil – were grown, harvested and transported from North America, the steppes of Russia, Asia, Africa and the southern hemisphere for sale on the commodity markets of London and Liverpool. Sales of commodities in the first part of the nineteenth century were by dealings on physical markets and by auction. Trade associations like the London Corn Trade Association formed from the mid-nineteenth century had as a major aim the formulation of standard form contracts to govern the international sale of these commodities. Sale in this way need not be on physical markets or by auction, but could be at a distance. These standard form contracts modified the default rules of sales law. They are the precursors of contracts used world-wide today. Although governed by English law, they were adopted internationally. Traders in other countries had an input into their formulation. In drawing them up trade association members took the lead, with lawyers ‘on tap, not on top’. Disputes were settled by arbitration provided in the contract, and relatively few reached the courts. Untoward court decisions were remedied by redrafting the contracts.

This chapter explores the evolution of judicial influence using a hand-collected data set of all cases until 2016 that address the enforceability of clickwrap, shrinkwrap, and browsewrap contracts as well as their out-of-state influence over time. A foundational theory conceptualizes precedent as an investment that yields valuable information to subsequent courts that depreciates over time, as new circumstances and innovations make such precedent less helpful for later courts. Empirical research on judicial citations has found a “superstar” or “tournament winner” effect, whereby a handful of cases garner almost all citations for a given question. How do tournament winners fare over time? I find that the citation universe is indeed dominated by “tournament winners.” These cases, which tend to be decided by circuit court judges, influence other courts from the date they are decided. Instead of experiencing depreciation, however, I find that their influence continues to grow, even over cases that are hierarchically more important. In addition, cases tend to converge towards a particular rule or standard over time. The results enrich our understanding of the evolution of judicial influence and help inform theories of the evolution of precedent and the common law.