A Comparative Study of the Role of Good Faith, Reasonableness, and Fairness in Contract Completion under Iranian Law and Common Law
Keywords:
Good faith, Equity, Reasonableness, Contract supplementationAbstract
A contractual supplement, or gap filler, is a provision supplied by law or the court to address a gap or deficiency in a contract in cases where the parties have not reached an agreement on a specific matter. At times, for various reasons, the contracting parties may be unwilling or unable, at the time of concluding the contract, to agree on certain contractual terms such as the quantity or quality of the subject matter, the price, the method of payment, or the duration of the contract. Accordingly, while entering into the contract, they either postpone determining the desired terms to a future agreement or merely specify a criterion for their determination. This research, conducted using a descriptive–analytical method and aimed at examining the role of good faith, reasonableness, and fairness in contract completion under Iranian law and common law, concluded that in common law jurisdictions, contract completion is recognized and accepted. However, in Iranian law, contract completion faces two fundamental objections: the rule prohibiting gharar (excessive uncertainty) and the principle requiring detailed knowledge of the subject matter of the transaction. Nevertheless, an examination of the concept of gharar and the instances of sufficiency of general knowledge in Article 216 of the Iranian Civil Code indicates that these two principles cannot be regarded as serious impediments to recognizing the validity of open contracts.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Saeed Moradi (Author); Alireza Navarian (Corresponding author); Mohammad Bagher Ghorbanvand (Author)
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