CONTRACTS, NON-COMPENSATORY DAMAGES, AND THE INTANGIBLE ECONOMY

This paper intends to contribute to the debate concerning the foundation and place of non-compensatory damages as a class of remedy applicable to contract law. It pursues this objective based on the theory that non-compensatory damages serve in modern contract law to incentivise and promote the creation of knowledge-based public goods through contracts. Connected with this argument is the view that the settled acceptance of non-compensatory damages in contracts can help in the deployment of contracts to supplement intellectual property (“IP”) law regimes in the creation of knowledge-based public goods. The postulations of this article are, chiefly, as follows: a) contract law remedies must respond to contemporary transactional hazards thrown up by the intangible economy; and, b) contracts can be assets per se when they border on critical social interests.