论夸张广告的违约责任——以诚实信用原则为视角

On the Liability for Breach of Contracts of Exaggerated Advertising from the Perspective of the Principle of Honesty and Credibility

在商品交易活动中,诚实信用原则是买卖双方均应遵守的最基本的准则,发布虚假广告者必将受到法律的制裁,但经营或发布带有夸张性成分与内容的广告,是否也应当承担相应的法律责任,则存在一定争议,而这也间接导致部分广告发布者通过打“擦边球”以规避法律的管制。通过诠释诚实信用原则的理论、对比分析民法与商法的调整范围和立法原则,在廓清虚假广告与夸张广告的法律界限后,认为在一方当事人的行为是否违反诚实信用原则的判断问题上,商法上的门槛应该高于民法,夸张广告原则上不导致违约责任,但对于广告经营者在发布带有夸张性内容的广告后,因故意或重大过失未尽到应有的注意义务而违反诚实信用原则时,消费者一方还是可以基于违约责任向广告经营方请求赔偿其履行利益上的损害。

In commodity trading activities,the principle of honesty and credibility is the most basic legal standard that both buyers and sellers should abide by.Under this standard,those who still publish false advertisements will be subject to legal sanctions.It is still controversial whether they should also bear the corresponding legal liability if they operate or publish advertisements with exaggerated elements and contents,which indirectly leads to playing“edge ball”by some advertising publishers to evade the control of the law.This article interprets the principle of honesty,comparatively analyzes the adjustment scope and legislative principles of civil law and commercial law,and preliminarily distinguishes the legal boundary between false advertising and exaggerated advertising.Meanwhile,if a party’s behavior violates the principle of honesty,the threshold of commercial law should be higher than that of civil law,and exaggerated advertising does not lead to liability for breach of contract in principle.However,if an advertising operator violates the principle of honesty due to deliberate or gross negligence after publishing an advertisement with exaggerated content,the consumer can still request compensation from the advertising operator based on the liability for breach of contract for the damage of its performance interests.