No break clause in academic contract I came across a mention of a "no break clause" in academic contracts, i.e. a clause in working contract by which an academic is liable to a penalty if they terminate their contract before the end of a fixed term. This is not related to a compensation of relocation costs. I wonder if this was or is legal and practicable in the U.S. and Europe? I am equally interested in historical perspective (1950s) and modern days.
In contract law in the United States, this is a "liquidated damages" clause. It provides that when one side breaches the contract, it has to pay a certain amount of money to make up for it. Normally this is done where it is difficult to calculate the actual damages in the event of a breach, or where the parties would rather avoid calculating the actual damages--a common example is where you put in an earnest money deposit on a house and then forfeit the earnest money if you do not buy. However, there are restrictions on what kind of damages are permitted. Notably, a "penalty" usually refers to an unreasonable amount that is unenforceable as against public policy. It would ordinarily be unreasonable to make someone pay a hundred million dollar penalty for breaking a ten thousand dollar contract, for example. Liquidated damages clauses frequently say "this is not a penalty" and "the parties agree this is reasonable" to make it harder to invalidate them on public policy grounds. Instead, if the liquidated damage payment is a payment meant to reflect actual damages that are just hard to calculate, it is much more likely to be enforceable. You would need to research liquidated damages and penalties in the state whose law governs the contract to determine whether the particular clause is permissible under state law. See https://www.google.com/search?q=restatement+of+contracts+penalty&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8
Yes, but ... It doesn’t protect you. Let’s imagine you put such a clause in and a person in Europe used your service notwithstanding: they’ve broken the contract but you’ve broken the law. You get the fine and they get ... nothing. Because you can’t contract outside the law you never had a valid contract with them so you have no basis to sue. Further, because you are purporting to something you can’t legally do, you are probably on the wrong side of misleading and deceptive consumer protection law: which is another fine. If you can ensure that you don’t breach local law - like by not operating over the internet - then you can choose not to deal with e.g. Europeans. If you can’t guarantee that, then you’re stuffed.
No The contract is created at the moment that an offer was accepted. In normal circumstances: You accepted an offer that they made to the general public by sending a purchase order for specific items at specific prices, or They accepted your offer by communicating their acceptance to you (being advised that the goods have been dispatched counts). However, in this circumstance, the company has been explicit that the contract is only created when either: You checkout and pay, or They “supply an invoice to you.” It appears that neither event happened so there is no contract. Their specific terms have overridden the common law rules on offer and acceptance (as they are allowed to do) and the offer has not been accepted until you receive their invoice. Specifically, it cannot be accepted by performance (dispatching the goods) and the requirement for the invoice to be supplied overrides the postal rule. Note that, in this case, you got lucky. 99 times out of 100 there would have been a valid contract and you would have breached it. In future, cancel orders specifically, don’t make assumptions.
The EULA is in most jurisdictions a legally binding contract; there is plenty of case law that supports this. You can only be liable under a contract for breaching its terms and only to the extent that the other party suffers harm from that breach. Clearly, if you haven't read the terms then you are greatly increasing the chance that you will inadvertently breach them but not reading them would not, of itself, be a breach and I can't see what harm could flow anyway.
For a contract (including ToS) to be valid, one of the things it must have is "legality of objects". That is, if the contract purports to require anything that is unlawful in the jurisdiction then (barring a severance clause) it is not a contract. In common law countries, the starting point is that people are free to contract for and about anything they like - a contract is simply a mechanism for exchanging value between the parties on whatever terms they wish. However, judges and legislatures have decided that there are some things you cannot trade and some terms that are unconscionable or against the public interest and these vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction*. For example, a contract is not legal in any jurisdiction if its terms seek to exclude the intervention of the courts - this is against public policy. So for example, a binding arbitration clause requiring the parties to accept a private arbitrator's decision as final excludes the courts, yes? Well, in Australia, yes, such clauses if used in a contract between parties with different bargaining power (like a Telco and its customers) are invalid because they prevent the weaker party pursuing a class action. However, they are perfectly legal in the United States because the SCOTUS has determined that the customer can persue litigation after arbitration is finished so this doesn't impede the courts. These are essentially the same laws interpreted by the courts so that they have totally opposite effects. So this might lead you to think that you'll put one in - it'll be OK in the US and Australians will represent such a tiny share of your market that you don't care if I can't enforce my ToS there. Except, if your website is visible by Australians, you have just exposed yourself to a government fine of up to AUD 5,000,000 (say USD 3,000,000) per day for breach of Australian Consumer Law. As a general guide (which is very stereotypical), US jurisdictions are the most permissive in the rights they will allow their citizens to give up: the US attitude is that everyone is free to make the best deal they can. European jurisdictions are the least permissive in this regard: most European countries follow a more social welfare state model and the citizen needs protecting from themselves. Commonwealth countries tend to be more in the middle.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-1698485/Can-I-discuss-my-pay-with-colleagues.html In short, there are no laws prohibiting or rendering such contract clauses unenforceable, but an employer cannot rely on such a contractual clause to abrogate its obligations under the Equality Act 2010.
I think you are misinterpreting what the article is saying. It's not Germany as a whole that is banning managers contacting employees (and since you are not a manager, this wouldn't affect you anyway), it is the German ministry of Employment banning it for its employees. When it comes to your own workplace, you will need to look at your own contract and see whether you are allowed to work on the weekend without, for example, getting extra money for that work. This is probably not the case for you as a PhD student, but if it is, you would usually need to talk to your employer before doing work on the weekends.
Contracts are generally assignable, meaning that one company can assign their rights, duties and obligations under the contract. Assignment may be specifically barred by the contract, or it may have certain terms (prior written consent, etc.) attached, but if not, a contract is likely freely assignable. Though a contract is not necessarily "automatically transferred" the reason Company C buys Company A is for its ability to earn Company C over time, which includes the contract between A &amp; B. So unless the original contract has a "no assignments clause" or if an assignment is otherwise impossible or illegal, it is likely that A can freely assign the contract to C.