Law of Obligations + Exercises session with casus

The bulk of the course content is set out in Books 1, 5 and 8 of the (new) Civil Code, adopted during the 2019-2024 legislature.
After defining the concept of an obligation in the legal sense of the term (introduction), substantial attention will be given to the sources of obligations, with contracts occupying a central place.
The course then examines the general regime of obligations: modalities of obligations, obligations involving multiple objects or parties, the transfer of obligations, performance and non-performance, measures to protect creditors' rights and the grounds for the extinction of obligations (including limitation periods, which are currently still governed by the former Civil Code). The course concludes with an examination of the rules governing proof of obligations.
Certain limited aspects of Book 6 of the Civil Code, which entered into force on 1 January 2025, will be addressed during the course, in particular those relating to concurrent contractual and extra-contractual liability and, more specifically, the possibility of bringing an extra-contractual liability claim against an auxiliary.
Certain aspects of European Union law are also addressed. These include, in particular, consumer-protection rules transposing, for example, Directives 2011/83/EU (especially the information requirements and the right of withdrawal) and 93/13/EEC (on unfair terms in consumer contracts).
Developments relating to European Union law account for approximately 5% of the course content. This limited proportion reflects the fact that the law of obligations still largely falls within national legal systems, while EU intervention is concentrated mainly in specific sectors such as consumer protection.

The course is taught primarily through lectures. This does not preclude illustrating the subject matter through the analysis of documents and/or case law, or using interactive activities or practical case-solving, including through Wooclap.
Practical sessions (“TP”) are also organised in groups so as to allow students to assimilate the basic concepts progressively and in a more individualised manner and to apply them to situations drawn from practice.
Attendance at the practical sessions is mandatory (see below).
Students are expected to be punctual, bring the required documents and, where applicable, have completed the preparation requested by the teaching assistant.
The practical sessions consist of six ninety-minute sessions and one two-hour session, organised during the second semester of the academic year, comprising:

• an introductory session devoted to a general presentation, distribution of the practical cases and the method for solving them;
• four sessions devoted to the practical study of various issues in the law of obligations through exercises and document analysis;
• one session devoted to collective feedback on the research overview;
• and a final two-hour session devoted to oral presentation of the practical cases in the form of oral advocacy.

Active participation by students is also expected. The practical sessions are intended to enable students to develop their ability to speak about a legal topic during discussions with the teaching assistant and with fellow students.
This active participation is graded and requires adequate preparation for the announced sessions and the practical-case materials.
Each student must prepare a written paper, preceded by a research overview, designed to assess their understanding and practical application of the material taught in the lectures and practical sessions. Each student must also present their work orally. Participation, the research overview and the oral presentation are assessed, at least in the first examination session (see below).
The detailed instructions for the practical sessions are set out in the guidelines for the practical sessions in the law of obligations, which are made available to students through the SVIB Course Materials Office and may be downloaded from Moodle. These instructions supplement this course description and are deemed to form an integral part of it.
Office hours and/or appointments are organised by the teaching assistant under the arrangements specified at the first session.
Teachers reserve the right to prohibit the use of any electronic device during practical sessions (computer, tablet, smartphone, etc.).

Assessment type
Lecture
In both the first and second examination sessions, the examination relating to the lectures takes the form of an oral assessment covering the material taught, as set out in the syllabus, as well as the developments presented during the course, including analysis of the selected case law.
Students are given preparation time to answer two questions. These may consist, in particular, of commenting on a legal provision or a court decision, a broader analytical question - for example, a comparative exercise - or solving a practical case whose scope and degree of difficulty are adapted to the oral examination format.
In addition to these two prepared questions, students answer two short knowledge questions without preparation time. The lecturer ensures that the questions as a whole cover different parts of the course.
The examination relating to the lectures is marked out of 20.
The mark awarded for this assessment accounts for 3/4 of the final mark for the teaching unit.
For assessment purposes, answering a question, even incorrectly, may not result in a lower mark than would have been obtained by leaving that question unanswered (Article 60 of the RGEE).
Practical sessions ("TP" in French)
The assessment of the practical sessions is marked out of 20.
The mark awarded accounts for 1/4 of the final mark for the teaching unit.
Details of the assessment are set out in the guidelines for the practical sessions in the law of obligations.
In the first examination session, assessment is based, on the one hand, on active participation in the sessions, the research overview and the oral presentation of the practical cases (5 points out of 20) and, on the other hand, on a written paper (15 points out of 20).
If the written paper must be resubmitted in the second examination session (which is the case if the teaching unit and the practical sessions have not both been passed with a mark of at least 10/20 in the first session), the student must work on the practical case originally assigned to them but defend the party opposite to the one they were initially required to represent. Failure to comply with this requirement, which is an essential component of the exercise in the second session, will result in a mark of 0 for the substance of the paper.
The mark out of 5 for active participation in the sessions, the research overview and the oral presentation of the practical cases will be retained provided that it is at least half of the available points. Otherwise, the mark for the practical sessions will be calculated out of 15 and converted to a mark out of 20.
The written assignments (research overview and final paper) must be submitted to the teaching assistant in accordance with the arrangements set out in the guidelines for the practical sessions in the law of obligations.
Students are also responsible for submitting the correct written paper: submitting a paper on a different subject (for example, one relating to another practical class) is equivalent to failing to submit the required paper and therefore justifies a mark of 0A for the 'written paper' component of the practical sessions and, consequently, for the teaching unit. Teaching assistants are not required to verify before the examination session whether students have complied with this minimum requirement.
The final paper (first and, where applicable, second examination sessions) must be accompanied by the “declaration of contribution form” concerning the use of a generative AI tool.
This document must be signed by the student.
An inaccurate or manifestly incomplete declaration constitutes a breach that may be classified as an irregularity within the meaning of Articles 107 et seq. of the General Regulations for Studies and Examinations.
Other important remarks:
(a) As stated above, attendance and participation in the sessions and the submission of genuine work are mandatory and are assessed in their own right.
Unjustified absence from more than one session and unjustified failure to submit a genuine written assignment (the 'research overview' and final paper) within the prescribed time limit and through the channel specified by the teaching assistant will result in a mark of 0A/20 for the practical sessions and, consequently, for the teaching unit.
Whether the work qualifies as genuine work is assessed in accordance with the instructions set out in the guidelines for the practical sessions in the law of obligations, in line with the decision of the Faculty Council, to which reference is made.
Where a written assignment (the 'research overview' or final paper) is submitted late in relation to the deadline and through the channel specified by the teaching assistant, the following penalties apply:
- A deduction of 2 points for each 24-hour period of delay in submitting the paper;
- A mark of 0A/20 if the paper is submitted more than 5 days late.
This applies to each examination session.
Justification for absences or for failure to submit a genuine written assignment (the 'research overview' and final paper) within the prescribed time limit must be provided to the teaching assistant and the Faculty administration no later than the day following the end of the impediment (for example, the day after the final day covered by a medical certificate), failing which it will automatically be deemed inadmissible.
(b) During the June examination session, if the student fails only one of the teaching unit activities and passes the other, the passing mark obtained for the latter is retained for the purpose of determining the final mark in the second examination session. In other words, between the two examination sessions of the same academic year, the student retains the passing mark awarded for either the lecture examination or the practical sessions even if they have failed the other activity; they therefore do not have to retake the assessment they passed in the second session.
This benefit does not carry over beyond the academic year in which the passing mark was obtained.
(c) The mark for the teaching unit is expressed as a whole number from 0 to 20. If rounding is required when determining the final mark for the teaching unit (resulting from the combination of the marks for the lectures and the practical sessions), the teaching team carries out an overall assessment of the student's work and of the skills demonstrated, particularly in oral work and in class. The teaching unit mark is therefore not systematically rounded up to the next whole number, even where the combined mark reaches or exceeds 0.5.
(d) During the week following publication of the examination-session results, the teaching assistant organises an opportunity to review the written assignments, under the arrangements specified by the teaching assistant.
Assessment language
Assessments are conducted exclusively in French.
The documentary sources used for the written assignments (practical sessions) must cover legal scholarship and case law in both French and Dutch.
Assessment criteria
1/ Lectures (3/4 of the teaching unit mark)
In line with the learning outcomes identified above, the criteria used to assess the lecture component are as follows:

• the ability to answer the question actually asked;
• the ability to present the course content concisely, accurately and nevertheless comprehensively, demonstrating the ability to distinguish essential from ancillary points and to relate specific questions to the broader frameworks to which they belong;
• the ability to classify given factual situations in legal terms;
• the ability to identify the relevant legal bases, read them correctly and explain their interaction in a relevant manner; this skill also requires students to demonstrate familiarity with using their codes and specific legislation;
• the ability to compare related concepts and mechanisms, including the ability to draw connections between them independently in a convincing and reasoned manner;
• the ability to adopt a critical approach;
• the ability to reason and argue;
• the ability to express oneself orally.

2/ Practical sessions (1/4 of the teaching unit mark)
Attendance and participation in the practical sessions form part of the assessment.
The criteria for assessing the quality of the written assignments (the 'research overview' and final paper) are as follows, in addition to the subject-matter skills, which are identical to those specified for the lecture component (see above):

• the originality and quality of the intellectual approach;
• the quality of the methodological approach (quality of the bibliography, sufficiency and relevance of French- and Dutch-language sources, correct referencing of sources, etc.);
• rigour in both substance and form (including the quality of the writing and mastery of the concepts discussed);
• as regards command of French in written assignments, a maximum of 10% of the overall mark, i.e. two points out of 20, may be deducted in accordance with the marking system adopted by the Faculty Council;
• compliance with the requirements concerning text length and deadlines;
• intellectual honesty, which is essential in academic work, including, where applicable, the ethical and intelligent use of (generative) AI (see below).

Other remarks
1/ Documents permitted in the examination
Throughout the exam, students may and must consult legal and regulatory texts. In the authorised codes and legislation, students are permitted only to:

• underline or highlight words or sentences;
• surround words (but not isolated letters or groups of letters);
• make cross-references from one article to another, accompanied, where appropriate, by the title of the relevant legal instrument.

During the examination, students also have access to the collections of court decisions discussed during the course. In those collections, students are permitted only to:

• underline or highlight words or sentences;
• circle words (but not isolated letters or groups of letters).

Post-it notes and other removable dividers may be used, but they may indicate only the title and date of the legal instruments appearing on the marked page.
Anything not expressly permitted is prohibited.
Documents may be checked at the beginning of or during the examination.
Warning: any annotation, even a single word, that exceeds the limits set out above will be regarded as cheating. The student's mark will then be reduced to 0/20 (see Articles 107 et seq. of the General Regulations for Studies and Examinations).
2/ Use of artificial intelligence in practical assignments
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is not prohibited as such in the context of practical assignments, but it must be limited to occasional support for the student in carrying out certain tasks, such as linguistic revision of the text, translation of a passage, etc. Such AI support does not in any way relieve students of the obligation to carry out the required research and drafting themselves. Students must therefore exercise judgement and critical thinking when using AI (Piccolo, ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) and must scrupulously disclose how it has been used.
Students are required to comply with all principles governing academic work, including the requirement that the work be personal and authentic, in accordance, among other things, with the specifications set out in the guidelines of the practical sessions, which apply in full and incorporate the requirements of this course description.
Students are required to:

• comply with the principles upheld by the Faculty in this regard (see the document “Faculty Guidelines for the Critical and Responsible Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence”);
• declare any use of a generative AI tool in the preparation of an assignment by means of the standard form (“Declaration of Contribution”) provided by the Faculty and attached to the assignment.

Moodle is the preferred platform for sharing information (general instructions, course materials, announcements, etc.). In addition to the compulsory course materials referred to in the following section, PowerPoint slides will be made available on Moodle to illustrate certain points covered in the course.
Students may also ask questions on the forum within the time limits indicated during the lectures.
Students are invited to consult Moodle regularly.

Le syllabus renvoie à différents ouvrages, articles ou notes « pour en savoir plus ». Ces références peuvent être complétées par :

• I. CLAEYS et T. TANGHE, Nieuw algemeen contractenrecht, 2e éd., Antwerpen, Intersentia, 2025.
• S. DE REY, IX Verbintenissen - A Algemeen regime van de verbintenis, coll. Beginselen van Belgisch Privaatrecht, Kluwer, 2026.
• T. DERVAL, R. JAFFERALI et B. KOHL, La réforme du droit des obligations – Présentation générale des livres 1er et 5 du nouveau Code civil, Coll. Conférence du Jeune Barreau de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Larcier, 2023.
• F. GEORGE, P. COLSON, A. CATALDO, B. FOSSEPREZ et X. THUNIS, Manuel de droit des obligations. Théorie du contrat et régime général de l’obligation, Bruxelles, Larcier-Intersentia, 2024
• S. STIJNS, Verbintenissenrecht, leerboeken 1, 1bis et 2, Brugge, die Keure, 2025 et 2026.
• P. VAN OMMESLAGHE, Traité de droit civil belge, Tome II : Les obligations, Volumes 1 à 3, Bruylant, 2013.
• T. VANSWEEVELT et B. WEYTS (dir.), Handboek verbintenissenrecht, Anvers, Intersentia, 2019, et 2e éd., 2023
• P. WÉRY, Droit des obligations, Vol. 1 : Théorie générale du contrat, 3ème éd., Larcier, 2021 & Vol. 2 : Les sources des obligations extracontractuelles – Le régime général des obligations, Bruxelles, Larcier, 2016.
• P. WÉRY, Livre 5 du Code civil : les obligations, Bruxelles, Larcier-Intersentia, 2024.