The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the principal) to create a legal relationship with a third party. Succinctly, it may be referred to as the relationship between a principal and an agent whereby the principal, expressly or implicitly, authorizes the agent to work under his control and on his behalf. The agent is, thus, required to negotiate on behalf of the principal or bring him and third parties into contractual relationship. This branch of law separates and regulates the relationships between:
- Agents and principals;
- Agents and the third parties with whom they deal on their principals' behalf; and
- Principals and the third parties when the agents purport to deal on their behalf.
The common law principle in operation is usually represented in the Latin phrase, qui facit per alium, facit per se, i.e. the one who acts through another, acts in his or her own interests and it is a parallel concept to vicarious liability and strict liability in which one person is held liable in criminal law or tort for the acts or omissions of another.
In India, section 182 of the Contract Act 1872 defines Agent as “a person employed to do any act for another or to represent another in dealings with third persons”.
Read more about Law Of Agency: The Concepts, Brief Statement of Legal Principles, Authority, Agency Relationships
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“All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite and individual over the general truth. The condition of our incarnation in a private self, seems to be, a perpetual tendency to prefer the private law, to obey the private impulse, to the exclusion of the law of the universal being.”
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