Atstovo įgaliojimų viršijimas – teorija ir praktika
Representative Exceeding Granted Authority – Theory and Practice

Summary/Abstract: Each developed economic system is based on the principle of division of labor and can’t be imagined without the delegation of certain powers to agents. Any economic activity, particularly carried out through legal entity, is not able to function without the party’s right to authorize other persons to negotiate and make contracts on behalf of the principal. Due to the complexity of the economic order it is sometimes difficult to a third party to ascertain whether the agent acts with authority. Therefore legal regulation expands the scope of authority of the representatives beyond the actually granted powers—often the need to check the credentials of the representatives is rejected, when it is obvious from the facts that they have been granted necessary powers. Thus the article deals with the concept of extent of authority granted to the representative by the principal. The emphasis is put on the scope of the powers, express, implied and apparent authority, the principal’s right to limit the implied authority, and the right of the representative to exceed the conferred powers under special conditions. Author analyses Lithuanian Supreme Court practice, “soft law”—Principles of European Contract Law, Draft Common Frame of Reference, UNIDROIT principles, as well as experience of European countries in the field of agency law. The analysis revealed, that Lithuanian jurisprudence doesn’t draw an exact boundary between the apparent and implicit authority. The cases where the transactions were concluded by the representative in the absence of real power, and the cases, in which the principal challenges the extent of implied authority in practice are not differentiated. After examining Lithuanian statutory and case law and overviewing the experience of European countries from the comparative perspective, the conclusion has been drawn that although the basic rule in the law of agency is that the principal is bound only by the actions of the representative which are concluded within the boundaries of granted authority, the contemporary legal regulation and case law confirms that such a limited notion of actual authority is rather the theoretical model than reality. There is a set of instances where the acts of a representative carried out without authorization or exceeding granted powers, create rights and duties to the principal. In particular, it is the case with apparent authority. Second, the Lithuanian legal regulation allows the representative to exceed the authority granted by the principal, when it is necessary for the principal’s interests and there is not feasible to discover actual will of the principal. Third, when the implied authority of the representative is disputed by the third party acting in good faith, there is strong evidence, that the principal will be legally bound by the acts of the implied representative.

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