Understanding Unjust Enrichment

The law of obligations (by which one usually means contract, tort, and equity) traditionally focuses on the problem of unjust losses caused by one party to another. The law of unjust enrichment examines instead the actionability of unjust gains made by one party (usually a private individual but sometimes also the State) at another’s expense. Such gains are made in a wide variety of different circumstances: through mistakes; the failure of contracts; undue influence; bribery; corruption; commercial fraud, illegal demands and tortious wrongdoing, to name but a few examples.