On Specific Performance in Civil Law and Enforcement Costs

We argue that enforcement costs, ignored in the literature on ‘efficient breach’, are important for the choice of contract breach remedy. Empirically we find that specific performance is almost never claimed in Civil Law countries. It involves forcing a party in breach to perform actions while damages involves extracting only a monetary payment. The former is more difficult and more coercive. We study enforcement rules of Denmark, France and Germany. Enforcement of specific performance is absent in Denmark and weak in France. In Germany it seems stricter, which points to the importance of costs of enforcement to the claimant.