Stating that contracts are designed to be respected does not puzzle or sound strange to anyone. The question, however, is the ability to reprimand not only who violates the agreement, but also who instigates a breach of contract. Holding a third party liable for the breach of a contract to which he is not a party may seem strange, after all, since such third party did not take part in the agreement, the rules governing it should not be enforced against him. How could such third party be held liable for causing a contract to which he is not a party to be terminated?
The answer to the common law doctrine called tortious interference is apparently simple: once the contracts are designed to be respected, actions interfering with them must be rejected.
The third party's liability would be based on a visibly malicious conduct, characterized by the assistance in breaching the contract to which he is not a party, thus allowing the execution of a new contract whose content is incompatible with the previous one. However, it should be stressed that the third party accomplice doctrine, although not new, needs to be better structured by the Brazilian legal doctrine and courts. Although relatively accepted and currently based on the principle of the social role of the contract, its acceptance remains unpredictable, especially because its application contradicts certain tenets of contract law, such as the subjective effectiveness of the contract.
In any case, the importance of the credit right for the company and the various situations involving it demonstrate that this right may be violated by a third party, either because the third party is interested in harming the original creditor, simply because he acts contrary to the precepts of good faith, without necessarily having the intent to harm others.
If the contract should be considered as a social fact, it is possible to accept its enforceability against third parties. The emergence of large economic transactions, dematerialization and depersonalization of commerce have caused credit to be valued as much as property. Thus, credit must be seen as a valuable asset of the creditor and as such, it must be respected by all. This should be understood as a relevant paradigm of contract law.
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