6.2 Unlawful Agreements

Forbidden by law: the agreement whose object-or-consideration the statute expressly prohibits (the smuggling contracts, the betting deals under the gaming legislation); Performance an offence: the agreement's very performance a crime (the criminal-purpose bargains); Fraudulent-or-evasive purposes: the tax-dodging sham, the creditor-dodging transfers, the money-laundering structures; Statutory illegality's spectrum: the licensing-and-regulatory illegality — the unlicensed-but- regulable transactions' voidness-or-enforceability debate (the serious vs. technical illegality: the courts' selective validation where the licence protects revenue only, not the public); The effect: the tout-nullity — no recovery on the illegal bargain (the clean-hands rule); the in pari delicto doctrine's narrow exceptions (the protection-of-the-more-innocent, the withdrawal- before-performance's loci).