第十届“华政杯”全国法律翻译大赛

第十届“华政杯”全国法律翻译大赛

“华政杯”全国法律翻译大赛组委会

2019年4月15日

我承诺，本译文系由本人（姓名）独立完成，无抄袭现象。本人同意主办方将我的参赛译文作为教学材料使用。
                                                                           年 月 日

第十届“华政杯”全国法律翻译大赛初赛试题
试题一：
One of the biggest mistakes I made early on as an entrepreneur was hiring cheap lawyers or not using an expensive lawyer nearly enough, thinking I was saving money for my business. But over the years, the school of hard knocks taught me just how expensive cheap legal help can be.

I don’t recall ever meeting anyone who actually enjoys writing a check to an attorney. Frankly I can’t recall meeting many people who enjoy lawyers at all – not the individuals themselves, but the idea of having to have a lawyer in the first place. Heaven would be a world where the need for lawyers didn’t even exist – where everyone could be trusted to uphold their word, where no one would ever have misunderstood expectations in their agreements, and where a simple conversation could settle any dispute that arose. But we aren’t in heaven – not yet anyway – and we certainly aren’t living in a perfect world, so the cold hard truth is that when push comes to shove, you better be hoping to heaven you have a great lawyer there to have your back.

Let’s start with the importance of a contract. When I first started a business I was embarrassed to even mention the word contract. I thought that by even suggesting it I would morally offend the other party, causing them to believe I didn’t trust them. I wanted to be the person that took people at their word and believed that everyone had good intentions. Asking for a contract, in my mind, went totally against that. It wasn’t until one day I had a call with my father, who happened to be a former FBI agent, that I first understood why my thinking had been incorrect

When I shared with him my embarrassment about asking for contracts, he simply stated that the contract wasn’t to say “I don’t trust you.” Rather, the contract was there to make sure that I had laid out in writing exactly what my expectations and understanding of our agreement was, and so that the other person could review those and make sure that they expected and understood the exact same terms that I did. Putting it in writing, he explained, was about entering into a relationship with open and honest expectations from both sides up front, so that everyone was clear from the get-go on what they understood.

His explanation was like a light bulb going off in my head. No longer did it seem like an offense to do a clear contract with someone. Instead, it was a service to one another to ensure that the relationship would produce a result that both parties could be happy with. From that point forward I became a huge advocate on the importance of having a contract that was very clear and detailed, that laid out every expectation, leaving no room for interpretation or misunderstanding, not out of a lack of trust, but out of a value and respect for the relationship with the other party.（502 words）

（Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyanderson/2013/06/04/nothing-is-more-expensive-than-a-cheap-lawyer/#76a0bd7e7d10）

试题二：

The later case of Zurich Insurance v Hayward [2017] A.C. 142 was the main case relied on by the judge. Insurers had settled a personal injury case despite doubts about the claimant’s injuries. They later discovered that the claimant had fully recovered a year before the settlement had been reached and brought an action in deceit claiming that he had fraudulently misrepresented the extent of his injuries. The Court of Appeal held that the insurers had not relied on the representation in reaching the settlement agreement because they had always had their suspicions about the claim. The Supreme Court allowed the insurers’ appeal holding that the fact that the insurers had not wholly believed the claimant did not preclude them from having been induced to reach the settlement by the claimant’s misrepresentation; they only had to prove that the misrepresentation had been “a material cause” of their reaching the settlement. Since the judge had held that it was a material cause, his order in their favour would be restored.

The question to be resolved was whether a representee had to show he believed the representation to which the Supreme Court returned a negative answer and, in one sense, the case is no more than an example of the principle set out in Edgington v Fitzmaurice that the representee only has to show that the representation was “a cause” of his entering the relevant contract. Indeed, Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony (with whom Lord Neuberger PSC, Baroness Hale DPSC and Lord Reed JSC agreed) cited Barton v Armstrong for that very proposition. More importantly, for the present purpose, Lord Clarke relied on the existence of the presumption of inducement and agreed with the insurers’ submission that the presumption would have little value if the representee had to show that he believed the misrepresentation. He cited the relevant paragraph of Chitty (now para 7-041 of the 33rd edition) to the effect that it was a fair inference of fact though not of law that the representee will have been influenced by the representation: “and the inference is particularly strong where the misrepresentation was fraudulent.”(351 words)

（Source: Bv Nederlandse Industrie Van Eiprodukten v Rembrandt Enterprises, Inc. [2019] EWCA Civ 596）

（两道题目均为参赛试题，并非选做，且以此版发布为准。）

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