Comparative Study of the Status of an Agent's Transaction for an Undisclosed Client in Iran and England’s Laws

Article 196 of the civil law finds it feasible to prove transaction performance for a third party even after the contract conclusion and, in case of being proved, the transaction is considered to have been performed for a third person. Despite the purport understood from the term “transacting party”, the majority of the jurists realize the foresaid article as being indicative of transactions by an agent for an Undisclosed client. The present article’s authors are of the belief that the subject of the article includes transactions by an agent and a rouge and its rulings refer to the article 197 of the civil law. This way, if the contract subject is an objective and specific property belonging to another person, there would be essentially no need for proving the agency contract’s intention and its justification only causes the transaction to be excluded from unauthorized contracts and elicits the owner’s bound to the contract. On the other hand, if the transaction subject is an action to be done by the transacting parties, proving of the agency or unauthorized contract’s intention would be useless due to being non-attributable and the contract is condemned to invalidation. Thus, the rulings of the article 196 should be interpreted for supporting the transacting party and not the Undisclosed person. The comparative study of these verdicts in Iran and England’s laws can assist the reduction of conflict between the purports of the article 196 and the commutative justice and public order considering their similarities.