A Critical Consideration of Substitutive Awards in Contract Law

Abstract

Substitutive accounts of contract damages have burgeoned over the last twenty years. Although these accounts differ in their detail, in broad terms they conceptualise at least some forms of damages for breach of contract as providing a pecuniary substitute either for the claimant’s ‘performance interest’, or a purported right to performance. Such damages are usually distinguished from damages which compensate for pecuniary losses flowing from the breach.