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Procurement to breach a contract, or inducement of breach of contract, and tortious interference with contractual relations. English.

By Lawlinguists In Word of the week

The first two phrases are British, the latter one American. They all mean “the tort of intentionally persuading or inducing someone to breach a contract made with third party”.
An example of this economic tort is best set using the facts of the United Kingdom landmark case Lumley v Gye (1853) 2 E&B 216. A theatre manager, Lumley, entered into a contract with a singer, restricting her ability to perform at any other theatre. Gye, a competitor, intended to harm Lumley and induced the singer to perform at his theatre thereby causing the singer to terminate her contract with Lumley. This case exemplifies the common-law approach in finding redress for a wronged party through principles inherent in precedent.
To be able to translate that notion into French, where this notion does not exist, we must separate the terms of the above definition. The inducement in contract law means “motivate a person to enter in a contractual relation”. The breach of contract can be defined as “violation du contrat” or “rupture du contrat” depending the context.
Therefore, we propose the following translation into French “incitation à violation/rupture de contrat”.
This translation shows with sufficient clarity to a French reader the most relevant feature of this tort: one would naturally assume that the tortfeasor would be the party directly breaching the contract (in the example above, this would be the singer). However, this tort is actionable against a third party. “Incitation” being the operative word in leading the reader to question the phrase and determine that it means something other than a traditional (for the lack of a better descriptor) action against the party directly breaching the contract.