Editing Gentlemen's agreement (section)

===Trade policies===
Gentlemen's agreements have come to regulate international activities such as the coordination of [[monetary policy|monetary]] or [[trade policy|trade policies]].<ref name="Oda">{{cite book |last=Kotera |first=Akira  |editor-last=Oda
|editor-first=Hiroshi |title=Law and Politics of West-East Technology Transfer |volume=1988 |year=1991 |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |isbn= 9780792309901 |pages=34–38 |chapter=Western Export Controls Affecting the Eastern Bloc }}</ref> According to [[Edmund Osmańczyk]] in the ''Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements'', it is also defined as "an international term for an agreement made orally rather than in writing, yet fully legally valid".<ref name="Osmańczyk">{{cite book |last=Osmańczyk |first=Edmund Jan |author-link=Edmund Osmańczyk |editor-last=Mango |editor-first=Anthony |title=Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: G to M|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fSIMXHMdfkkC|access-date=June 28, 2010 |edition=Third |volume=2: G-M |year=2003 |publisher=[[Routledge]]
|location=[[New York (state)|New York]] |page=792 |isbn=9780415939225 }}</ref> This type of agreement may allow a nation to avoid the domestic legal requirements to enter into a formal [[treaty]],<ref name="Oda"/> or it may be useful when a government wants to enter into a secret agreement that is not binding upon the next administration. According to another author, all international agreements are gentlemen's agreements because, short of war, they are ''all'' unenforceable.<ref name="Shafritz">{{cite book |last=Shafritz |first=Jay M. |title=The Dictionary of Public Policy and Administration|date=27 August 2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W6hMfnoJJSkC |publisher=[[Westview Press]] |location=[[Boulder, Colorado]] |isbn= 9780813342603 |page=131 }}</ref> Osmańczyk pointed out that there is a difference between open gentlemen's agreements and secret diplomatic agreements. In the United States, a prohibition against gentlemen's agreements in commercial relations between states was introduced in 1890, because the secretive nature of such agreements was beyond anyone's control.<ref name="Osmańczyk"/>

In [[English contract law]], for an agreement to be binding, there must be an [[Intention to be legally bound|intention to create legal relations]]; but in commercial dealings (i.e. agreements that are not between family members or friends) there is a legal presumption of an "intention to create legal relations". However, in the 1925 case of ''[[Rose & Frank Co v JR Crompton & Bros Ltd]]'', the [[Judicial functions of the House of Lords|House of Lords]] held that the phrase, "This arrangement is not ... a formal or legal agreement ... but is only a record of the intention of the parties" was sufficient to rebut the said presumption.<ref>Rose & Frank Co v JR Crompton & Bros Ltd [1925] AC 445 HL, [1924] UKHL 2</ref>