The application of the clause rebus sic stantibus

Abstract

The article analyzes the application of the clause rebus sic stantibus in recent years. Traditionally, the Supreme Court of Spain, has maintained a rigorous interpretation of the necessary requirements for its application. However, taking into account the economic crisis the country has gone through, in 2014 some court rulings adopted a more flexible interpretation of the required factual circumstances for its usage, which lead to the applicative extension of this figure. Since 2015, the Supreme Court has returned to the traditional interpretation of the qualifying conditions that lead to the application of the clause that, ultimately, constitutes a softening of the principle of contractual tying. The article concludes with some considerations about the use of this clause, and the analysis of several risk allocation jurisprudential criteria, which can be extracted from court rulings of recent years.