Editing Gentlemen's agreement

{{Short description|Informal, non-binding agreement, sometimes based on honor}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Other uses}}

A '''gentlemen's agreement''', or '''gentleman's agreement''', is an informal and legally non-binding [[wikt:agreement|agreement]] between two or more parties. It is typically [[Oral contract|oral]], but it may be written or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or through mutually beneficial [[etiquette]]. The essence of a gentlemen's agreement is that it relies upon the [[honor]] of the parties for its fulfillment, rather than being in any way enforceable. It is distinct from a [[contract|legal agreement or contract]]. A more formal (but still non-binding) form of the gentlemen's agreement is the [[memorandum of understanding]].

==History==
The phrase appears in the British parliamentary records in 1821<ref>{{Citation |title=Royal Commission of the Press |volume=2 |author= Great Britain. Parliament |publisher= G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, printers to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty |year= 1812 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ChY0AQAAMAAJ&q=%22gentlemen%27s+agreement%22 |page= 267 
}}</ref> and in the Massachusetts public records in 1835.<ref>{{Citation |title= Public documents of Massachusetts |volume=4 |author= Massachusetts |year= 1835 |page= 150 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=b3tKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22gentlemen%27s+agreement%22 }}</ref> The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' cites [[P. G. Wodehouse]]'s 1929 story collection ''[[Mr Mulliner Speaking]]'' as the first appearance of the term.<ref>"gentleman, n.". OED Online. December 2013. Oxford University Press. 11 February 2014</ref>

===Industry===
A gentleman's agreement, defined in the early 20th century as "an agreement between gentlemen looking toward the control of prices," was reported by one source to be the loosest form of a "[[pooling (resource management)|pool]]." Such agreements have been reported to be found in every type of [[Industry (economics)|industry]] and were numerous in the American [[steel industry|steel]] and [[iron industry|iron industries]] of the early 20th century.<ref name="Jones">{{cite book
|last=Jones |first=Elio |title=The Trust Problem in the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IoYaAAAAYAAJ |access-date=June 28, 2010 |year=1921 |publisher=[[Macmillan Company]]
|location=[[New York (state)|New York]] |pages=7–8 |chapter=II|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IoYaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA6}}</ref>

A report from the [[United States House of Representatives]] detailing their investigation of the [[United States Steel Corporation]] asserted that there were two general types of loose associations or [[consolidation (business)|consolidations]] between steel and iron interests in the 1890s in which the individual concerns retained ownership as well as a large degree of independence: the "pool" and the "gentleman's agreement." The latter type lacked any formal organization to regulate output or prices or any provisions for forfeiture in the event of an infraction. The efficacy of the agreement relied on members to keep informal pledges.<ref name="House">{{cite book
|last=United States House of Representatives |author-link=United States House of Representatives |title=United States Steel Corporation: Hearings before the Committee on Investigation of United States Steel Corporation.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hk4-AAAAYAAJ
|access-date=June 28, 2010 |year=1912 |publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office|Government Printing Office]]
|location=[[Washington, D.C.]] }}</ref>

In the automotive industry, Japanese manufacturers agreed that no production car would have more than {{cvt|280|PS|PS hp kW|0|order=out}}; the agreement ended in 2005.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-japanese-gentlemen-s-agreement-on-horsepower-a-failed-rule-of-self-restraint-229607.html |title=The Japanese Gentlemen's Agreement on Horsepower: A Failed Rule of Self-Restraint |first=Alex |last=Oagana |work=autoevolution |date=2024-02-21 |access-date=2025-03-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://carbuzz.com/features/jdm-gentlemans-agreement-japanese-cars-276-hp/ |title=JDM Gentleman's Agreement: Why Iconic Japanese Cars Are Limited To 276 HP |first=Roger |last=Biermann |work=CarBuzz |date=2025-01-24 |access-date=2025-03-23}}</ref> German manufacturers [[speed limiter|limit the top speed]] of high-performance [[Saloon (automobile)|saloons (sedans)]] and [[station wagons]] to {{convert|250|km/h|0}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.autoevolution.com/news/gentlemens-agreement-not-so-fast-sir-47736.html|title=Gentlemen's Agreement: Not So Fast, Sir!|author=Bogdan Popa|work=autoevolution|date=28 July 2012|access-date=28 September 2015|archive-date=29 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929183056/http://www.autoevolution.com/news/gentlemens-agreement-not-so-fast-sir-47736.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>van Gorp, Anke. "Ethical Issues in Engineering Design; Safety and Sustainability" page 16. Published by 3TU Ethics, 2005. {{ISBN|9090199071}}, 9789090199078. ISSN 1574-941X</ref> Some automakers, such as [[Mercedes-Benz]], offer options to increase or remove the speed limiter.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/news/so-long-guvnor-mercedes-will-unlock-top-speed-on-amg-models-in-the-us-for-a-price-154226.php|title=So Long Guv'nor: Mercedes Will Unlock Top Speed on AMG Models in the US, for a Price|work=Jalopink|author=Mike Spinelli|date=2006-02-11|access-date=2015-09-28|archive-date=2011-08-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813025130/http://jalopnik.com/cars/news/so-long-guvnor-mercedes-will-unlock-top-speed-on-amg-models-in-the-us-for-a-price-154226.php|url-status=live}}</ref> When the [[Suzuki Hayabusa]] motorcycle exceeded {{Convert|190|mph|abbr=on|order=flip}} in 1999, fears of a European ban or regulatory crackdown led Japanese and European motorcycle makers to agree to a limit of 300&nbsp;km/h (186&nbsp;mph) in late 1999.<ref name=Burns2012>{{citation|journal=Cycle World|title=Fifty years of "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?": A brief history of Ludicrous Speed |date=April 2, 2012|author=John Burns|url=http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/04/02/fifty-years-of-do-you-have-any-idea-how-fast-you-were-going/2/|url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120407081128/http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/04/02/fifty-years-of-do-you-have-any-idea-how-fast-you-were-going/2//|archive-date=April 7, 2012 }}</ref> ''See [[List of fastest production motorcycles]]''.

===International relations===
After intense anti-Japanese sentiment developed on the West Coast, US President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] did not want to anger Japan by supporting legislation to bar Japanese immigration to the United States, as had been done for Chinese immigration. Instead, there was an informal [[Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907|"Gentlemen's Agreement" (1907–8)]] and a corresponding informal [[Ladies' Agreement]] between the United States and Japan, whereby Japan made sure there was very little or no movement to the US. The agreements were made by US Secretary of State [[Elihu Root]] and Japan's Foreign Minister, [[Tadasu Hayashi]]. The agreement banned emigration of Japanese laborers to the United States and rescinded the segregation order of the San Francisco School Board in [[California]], which had humiliated and angered the Japanese. The agreement did not apply to the [[Territory of Hawaii]]. The agreements remained effective until 1924, when Congress forbade all immigration from Japan.<ref>Carl R. Weinberg, "The 'Gentlemen's Agreement' of 1907-08," ''OAH Magazine of History'' (2009) 23#4 pp 36-36.</ref> Similar anti-Japanese sentiment in Canada at the same time led to the Hayashi-Lemieux Agreement, also referred to as the "[[Gentleman's Agreement of 1908|Gentlemen's Agreement of 1908]]", with substantially similar clauses and effects.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/gentlemens-agreement-1908|title=Gentlemen's Agreement, 1908 &#124; Pier 21|access-date=2020-05-21|archive-date=2021-04-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413164906/https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/gentlemens-agreement-1908|url-status=live}}</ref>

===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>

===As a discriminatory tactic===
{{See also|Old boys network}}
Gentlemen's agreements were a widely used discriminatory tactic reportedly more common than [[restrictive covenants]] in preserving the homogeneity of [[upper-class]] neighborhoods and suburbs in the United States.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} The nature of these agreements made them extremely difficult to prove or to track, and were effective long after the United States Supreme Court's rulings in ''[[Shelley v. Kraemer]]'' and ''Barrows v. Jackson''. A 1995 source stated that gentlemen's agreements "undoubtedly still exist", but that their use had greatly diminished.<ref name="Higley">{{cite book |last=Higley |first=Stephen Richard |title=Privilege, Power, and Place: The Geography of the American Upper Class|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WCJTNLyee-kC |access-date=June 28, 2010 |year=1995 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |location=[[Lanham, Maryland]] |isbn= 9780847680214 |pages=40–41, 61 }}</ref>

Until [[Jackie Robinson]] was hired by the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]] in 1946, a gentlemen's agreement ensured that [[African American]] players were [[baseball color line|excluded from organized baseball]].<ref>N. Jeremi Duru, ''Friday Night ‘Lite’: How De-Racialization in the Motion Picture Friday Night Lights Disserves the Movement to Eradicate Racial Discrimination from American Sport'', 25 CARDOZO ARTS & ENT. L.J. 485, 530 (2007).</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Antitrust]]
* [[Gentlemen's agreement of Andhra Pradesh (1956)]]
* [[Good faith]]
* [[Handshake]]
* [[News embargo]]
* [[Voluntary compliance]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Authority control}}

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[[Category:Contract law]]
[[Category:Agreements]]
[[Category:Social graces]]