TRANSFORMATION OF THE OPERATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF CONTRACT LAW UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF SMART CONTRACTS

Abstract

The article examines the influence of smart contracts on the operation of the principles of Ukrainian contract law. It is substantiated that a smart contract is neither a new type of contract nor a form of a legal transaction, but constitutes a special way of making and performing a legal transaction in electronic form, combined with the automation of obligation performance. It is proved that the conclusion of the contract in this case takes place within the existing electronic form, while the principal novelty lies in the automated, uncontrollable, and irreversible performance. It is established that a smart contract does not abolish the principles of contract law but deprives a party of the possibility of volitional intervention during the time interval between the arising of the ground for performance and the actual performance, and renders the result of performance technically irreversible, so that what changes is not the content of the principles but the manner of their realization. It is proved that at the stage of contract conclusion the principle of freedom of contract is affected only minimally, whereas at the stage of obligation performance the operation of the principles of fairness, good faith, and reasonableness, the binding nature of the contract, the inadmissibility of unilateral refusal, and proper performance is transformed. A theoretical principle of the technological neutrality of civil-law regulation is formulated, according to which the technical method of making and performing a legal transaction does not narrow the scope of a party's rights and remedies guaranteed by law. The expediency of supplementing Article 207 of the Civil Code of Ukraine with a provision recognizing as the written form of a legal transaction the terms recorded in program code, provided that their content can be reproduced in a form capable of being perceived by a human, is substantiated.