Understanding Commercial Law

Summary:

Commercial law can be a complex and intimidating area of law for those who are not familiar with it. It governs the rules and regulations that businesses and individuals must abide by in the course of conducting commercial transactions, including contracts, sales, and other business activities. Understanding Commercial Law is essential for anyone involved in business, whether you are a small business owner or a corporate executive. This note aims to provide an overview of the fundamental principles of Commercial Law, helping to navigate this complex area of law with confidence.

Excerpt:

Understanding Commercial Law

WHAT IS LAW?
• A system of rules of social behavior;
• Rules are general statements on human behavior (abstract statements to be used to distinguish groups of                human behavior eg. Distinguishing rule non-compliant persons from compliant);
• The rules deal with the social behavior of human beings, not technical rules on non-human beings (e.g machines, etc. for example, rules on how to operate the machines are not law);
• Law may be concerned with social rules related to those machines, e.g rights/duty of humans to own or use            those machines;
• These rules are normative in character;
• People are obliged to obey them because of their “bindingness” otherwise, disobedience will attract sanctions from society (such as penalties, loss of rights, various kinds of remedies, etc.)

Example
• Rule: stealing is forbidden or “you shall not steal”
• Sanction: whoever steals shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned for a certain period of time;

The Penal Code of Tanzania usually contains only a sanction and a description of a prohibited behavior from which a rule is implied;
• Rule: If you enter into an agreement for buying an article you must pay the agreed price before taking it;
• Sanction: a loss suffered because of shall be compensated in damages by the one who caused it;
• The law of Contracts Act provides for entering into a contract and for remedies in case of breach or nonperformance.