FEATURES OF THE PARTIES’ LIABILITY IN VOLUNTARY REPRESENTATION RELATIONS

Abstract

The article studies and analyses the regulatory provisions of the legislation of Ukraine and the practice of the Supreme Court in terms of their interpretation and application, related to the grounds for the occurrence of legal liability of the parties to voluntary representative relations and the features of taking appropriate measures, in close connection with the limits and scope of such liability. In the context of the attorney’s liability, the author summarizes that the relevant features lie in three areas, closely related to the active role of the attorney as a party to the agency agreement, and depended on whether such liability arises through the prism of: 1) failure to fulfil or improper fulfilment of the content of the agency or failure to comply with the procedure for its execution, the relevant obligations of the attorney to act in the interests of the principal, as well as exceeding the granted powers; 2) the implementation of the sub-delegation in the context of the limits of the attorney’s liability established by law for the choice and actions of the deputy (i.e. in light of the deviation from the general principle of personal execution of the mandate by the attorney and whether the method and consequences of such deviation are consistent with the norms of the law and the provisions of the agency agreement); 3) obligations that arise after and in connection with the execution of the mandate or its termination before execution, as well as those related to such termination and its consequences, in particular the issue of compensation for damage caused in this way to the principal.In contrast, the cases and grounds for the occurrence of the principal’s liability to the attorney are narrower, but also significant, regarding the failure to fulfil the obligation to pay the attorney the fee due to him, unless otherwise established by the contract or law; refusal to reimburse the attorney for expenses related to the execution of the mandate; non-acceptance or untimely acceptance from the attorney of everything received by him in connection with the execution of the mandate. Additionally, the law imposes on the principal the obligation to compensate for losses caused to the agent by his unilateral termination of the agency agreement, if the agent acted as a commercial representative.