The institution of Gegenleistungsgefahr has the fundamental structure of "basic principle-exceptional interruption". The basic principle is that the burden of Gegenleistungsgefahr should always stay with the debtor before the main obligation is completely fulfilled. This principle is based on the synallagma between the main obligations of bilateral contracts and reflects the jurisprudential idea of commutative justice. The exceptions include the following situations, that is, the handing-over-act is accomplished, the status of delay on the side of the creditor arises, and a factor attributable to the creditor has led to the impossibility of fulfilling the main obligation. In these situations, the burden of gegenleistungsgefahr will be shifted to the creditor in advance or even should be shouldered by the creditor from the outset. Each of these three rules of exception has its own legitimacy. The rule that the handing-over-act can cause the Gegenleistungsgefahr to shift in advance applies also to sales contracts involving carriage. The risk-shift function of the institution of default of creditor takes followings as its normative pre-conditions, that is, the debtor is able and willing to fulfill the main obligation, the debtor has factually made the tender of performance or, in exceptional circumstances, has tendered with words-only in rare cases is the tender of performance unnecessary, and the creditor has not implemented the act of cooperation. As for the judgment of whether or not the relevant factors are attributable to the creditor, the fundamental criterion lies in the content of contract and the construction of the declaration of will of the contractual parties. In the course of unfolding the third kind of exception, the creditor should be held responsible for the impossibility of performance and bear the burden of Gegenleistungsgefahr from the outset under the following situations:the creditor breaches the duty of protection or the main obligation, the creditor does not implement necessary acts of cooperation, or the creditor takes extra risk as a result of a special promise or specific category of transactions. In the Chinese Contract Law, there are still many statutory gaps with respect to the institution of Gegenleistungsgefahrtragung, which should be filled up in the Title on Contract Law of the Draft Chinese Civil Code. |