Subsection 1: Invalidity

A contract that does not fulfil the conditions required for its validity is null and void. Nullity must be pronounced by the judge, unless the parties establish it by mutual agreement. The annulled contract is deemed never to have existed. Performed services give rise to restitution under the conditions set out in articles 1352 to 1352-9. Independent of the annulment of the contract, the injured party may seek compensation for…

Nullity is absolute where the rule infringed has as its object the safeguarding of the general interest. It is relative where the rule infringed has as its sole object the safeguarding of a private interest.

Absolute nullity may be requested by any person justifying an interest, as well as by the public prosecutor. It cannot be covered by confirmation of the contract.

Relative nullity can only be requested by the party whom the law intends to protect. It may be covered by confirmation. If the action for relative nullity has several holders, the renunciation of one does not prevent the others from acting.

Confirmation is the act by which the person who could rely on nullity waives it. This act mentions the subject-matter of the obligation and the defect affecting the contract. Confirmation can only take place after the contract has been concluded. Voluntary performance of the contract, with knowledge of the cause of nullity, is equivalent to confirmation. In the case of violence, confirmation can only occur after the violence has ceased….

A party may request in writing that the party who could rely on the nullity either confirm the contract or bring an action for nullity within a period of six months on pain of foreclosure. The cause of the nullity must have ceased. The writing expressly states that if no action for nullity is brought before the expiry of the six-month period, the contract will be deemed to be confirmed.

Where the cause of nullity affects only one or more clauses of the contract, it entails nullity of the entire act only if that clause or those clauses constituted a determining element of the commitment of the parties or of one of them. The contract is maintained when the law repudiates the unwritten clause, or when the purposes of the disregarded rule require its maintenance.

A plea of nullity is not time-barred if it relates to a contract that has not been performed.