Payer, réparer, punir. Étude des fonctions de la responsabilité contractuelle en droits français, allemand et anglais

What is the purpose of contractual liability? To compensate will be the classical answer. To provide a substitute for performance! will dissent some daring scholars. To punish? will ask some voices here and there. Contractual liability aims at reproducing a situation similar to the one that would have resulted from performance. In doing so, it fulfils not one, but several functions. Firstly, looking at the creditor, contractual liability offers him a monetary substitute for performance itself (satisfactory function) and a compensation for the consequential loss suffered due to the breach of contract (compensatory function). Secondly, turning to the debtor, contractual liability punishes particularly serious breaches of contract by allowing an amount of damages greater than the cost of performance and compensation (punitive function). In case of a profit-oriented breach, this punishment can take the form of an account of profits. The clarification of these three functions reveals the hybrid nature of contractual liability that forges its specificity and provides the conceptual foundations for its autonomy. On these functions depend the conditions and effects of contractual liability, its place in contract law and its articulation and combination with the other remedies for breach of contract, as well as its borderline to tortious liability. This comparative work in French, German and English Law examines the interactions between the functions and the sanctions within contractual liability in view of a better understanding and a possible rational reconstruction of the concept of contractual liability.