Contracts for Interacting Two-Party Systems

Abstract

This article deals with the interrelation of deontic operators in contracts – an aspect often neglected when considering only one of the involved parties. On top of an automata-based semantics we formalise the onuses that obligations, permissions and prohibitions on one party impose on the other. Such formalisation allows for a clean notion of contract strictness and a derived notion of contract conflict that is enriched with issues arising from party interdependence. 1