Frustration of purpose in Brazilian law

Abstract

The Brazilian Civil Code presents a gap with respect to the hypothesis in which the contract is affected by circumstances that arise between the contract’s formation and its performance. There are situations in which the supervening event, even if it does not provoke the effective impossibility of the contract’s performance, eliminates from the agreement the practical purpose that encouraged the contracting originally, frustrating its purpose. This phenomenon is called frustration of purpose. The objective of this article is to offeran overview of the frustration of purpose, presenting the concept, its application requirements, the effects it produces and, finally, the normative basis that can be found for the institute withinthe legal system.