Some Problems relating to Use of Letters of Intent in International Contracts

국제계약에 있어서 의향서의 사용과 관련한 문제점

This paper has derived some problems relating to the use of letters of intent which are common occurrence in the international contracts after considering its nature and legal issues. As reviewed before, some problems may occur when a party has documented a stage in the negotiations by letters of intent. Such documents may well explicitly spell out if, and to what extent, the parties should be bound by what they have already agreed or to carry on negotiations in order to reach the final contract. But if the documents are silent, some problems would arise. Contracting parties are therefore well advised to spell out if, and to what extent, they should be bound by such preliminary agreements. Here again, it might be prudent to explicitly set forth that the parties should not be bound until there is a final written contract signed by authorized representatives of the parties but that they shall abstain from such measures which may defeat their stated objective to reach final agreement, for example, by diminishing the value of performance under the contemplated contract.