Formation of Contracts by Offer and Acceptance

Formation of contracts by offer and acceptance. As the title implies the graduate qualification work describes contract formation. The work provides a detailed analysis of rules on offer and acceptance in different legal systems and soft law instruments. The focus is placed on the Russian Civil Code, the Uniform Commercial Code of the USA, the Principles of European Contract Law and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The main topics are whether a reply to an offer containing additional or different terms may be considered as an acceptance and if it is the case what should be the rules of determination of the final terms of the contract. The paper considers advantages and disadvantages of “knock out rule” and “the last-shot rule”. The moment when acceptance become effective, requirements as to its content, acceptance through silence or inaction and late acceptance are the further topics dealt with in the paper. The instruments to be discussed were chosen as representing different approaches to contract formation. While the UCC and the Russian Civil Code diverge deeply in this respect, the Principles of European Contract Law and the CISG tend to prefer middle-course solutions in many instances.