La posible exoneración del deudor de sus obligaciones contractuales como consecuencia de la crisis económica. Comentario a las SSTS de 17 y 18 de enero de 2013

Abstract

The Supreme Court considers that the economic crisis, itself, cannot be avalid reason to get exonerated of the duty to perform an obligation contractually assumed, on the basis of a supervening impossibility of performance or the rebus sic stantibus clause. Therefore, the unenforceability of a contract can take place only when the economic crisis changes the circumstances in an actual, concrete, serious and unpredictable way, or when the performance becomes impossible because the economic crisis causes an extraordinary event that was not, nor could have been, foreseen. These situations do not happen in the cases analyzed, as it has not been proven that the concrete situation of the buyers changed notoriously after the signing of the contract, making actually impossible to perform the obligation.