Summary

Buying a cup of coffee from a vending machine, but also, for example, a driving or parking ticket, seems like a sign of the modern times. This is not the case, however, and as early as 1893, legal scholars have been debating how to legally ‘treat’ vending machines offering goods to everyone. Are the machines merely complementary to people’s expressions of will, or is there a particular way of entering into a contract in which it may be difficult to identify them? Instead of machines, expressions of will that are not directed at a specific group of people can also be expressed on signs, signposts or other markings that are visible to everyone.

The aim of this article is to analyse how contracts are concluded via vending machines, including passenger transport contracts and parking contracts. These contracts are very common in today’s world and the user of the service or the buyer of the goods usually does not even think about entering into a contract. The starting point for the conclusion of any contract is subsection 9 (1) of the Law of Obligations Act, according to which a contract shall be concluded by the submission of an offer and the consent thereto, as well as by any other mutual exchange of the expression of will if it is sufficiently clear that the parties have reached an agreement. Thus, a contract can be deemed to be concluded when the parties have expressed their respective expression of will.