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OPPORTUNISTIC CONTRACT AS A FORM OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOUR IN TODAY’S RUSSIAN BUSINESS
Abstract
Behavioural uncertainty is an important factor in building contractual relations, which can lead to significant risks in the process of concluding and implementing a contract as the main tool for economic exchange. This article explores the most typical types of opportunistic contracts, based on the personal business experience of the authors and on the practice of interaction between business entities in today’s Russian economy. An opportunistic (mined) contract is a written procedure for the interaction of economic agents providing for some contract terms and conditions that can significantly change the economic effect of the contract execution with an unjustified benefit for one of the parties to the detriment of the other party to the contract, which is not obvious at first glance, but can happen in the process of the contract implementation (or under the impact of a certain combination of external factors). The authors give a definition of an opportunistic contract, define its characteristics and consider some practical examples of the contractual opportunism manifestation. They conclude that the fundamental precondition for the widespread institutional practice of opportunistic (mined) contracts is an insufficient effectiveness of the judicial system and the judicial and other mechanisms for protecting the violated rights of business entities. The main negative effect of opportunistic contracts on economic processes is a significant increase in transaction costs.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26668/revistajur.2316-753X.v4i76.6536
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