La violence économique dans l’espace OHADA

Economic violence occurs when an imbalance in the rights and obligations of the parties to a contract results from the exploitation by one of them of the other?s situation of (economic) weakness at the time of conclusion of the agreement. As a growing issue in contractual justice, the phenomenon is increasingly being addressed in modern legislation. In the geographical area covered by OHADA, it remains a matter for domestic law, reinforced by legislation of community origin (WAEMU and CEMAC in particular) in certain specific areas. The two OHADA draft texts intended to standardize the general law of obligations certainly address the issue, but from two different approaches: one associates it with duress, and the other with lesion. This article thus focuses on the legal regime of economic violence within the OHADA area. It begins by assessing this regime which, de lege lata, is not harmonized and proves to be deficient. This observation, combined with other legal and situational considerations, makes it possible to determine, de lege ferenda, the foundations of an optimized uniform legal regime.