Danish Contract Law

This brief introduction to the main principles and canons of construction of Danish contract law is intended to provide our international clients with a useful overview when structuring Danish transactions or when reviewing Danish agreements.

General

As a jurisdiction, Denmark is predominantly a civil law jurisdiction with elements of common law interspersed. It therefore constitutes more of a hybrid with a civil law base and certain common law characteristics. There is no unified civil law code, but a number of specific statutes interwoven with legal principles emanating from custom and case law.

The main governing statute is the consolidated Agreement Act (Aftaleloven). The Agreement Act sets out the general principles of Danish contract law, but it does not regulate their interpretation per se. Other statutes may as lex specialis regulate certain agreements by imposing terms which cannot be abrogated to the detriment of e.g. the a consumer and thus