CONTRATO CONDICIONAL: INCERTIDUMBRE, INTANGIBILIDAD Y MANIPULACIÓN DE LA CONDICIÓN.

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem wherein one of the parties to a contract manipulates the basic condition on which the contract hinges and the efficacy of the kinds of remedies available as a consequence. First, the structure of the conditional event (the conditioning factors and components of the event) is analyzed. Next, the relationship amongst optional conditions, latitude for choice and unjust action (manipulation) is examined. The nature of interest and the function interest performs in the contract condition are considered, and a hot topic in foreign legal thought, unilateral conditions, is transferred to Spanish ground. Interest in the contract's pivotal condition may be unilateral; the unilateral nature of interest is linked to how the parties handle the issue of consideration; and the parties' possibilities for exercising different faculties with respect to the condition depend in turn on the consideration at issue. The paper discusses the consequences entailed in manipulation of the condition. A proposal is put forward, suggesting that the focus on the fiction of compliance as a legal penalty should be revised in terms of its requirements as well as its effects, and its effects should be made more flexible and thus more able to provide stronger protection of the injured party's interest. The article winds up with a defence of the thesis of compliance through the equivalent of the condition.