The recently proposed Common European Sales Law is intended to overcome differences between national contract laws. 19 chapters, co-authored by British and German scholars, investigate for the first time how the projected CESL would interact with various aspects of English and German law.

This book presents a critical analysis of the rules on the contents and effects of contracts included in the proposal for a Common European Sales Law (CESL). The European Commission published this proposal in October 2011 and then withdrew it in December 2014, notwithstanding the support the proposal had received from the European Parliament in February 2014. On 6 May 2015, in its Communication ‘A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe’, the Commission expressed its intention to “make an amended legislative proposal (...) further harmonising the main rights and obligations of the parties to a sales contract”. The critical comments and suggestions contained in this book, to be understood as lessons to learn from the CESL, intend to help not only the Commission but also other national and supranational actors, both public and private (including courts, lawyers, stakeholders, contract parties, academics and students) in dealing with present and future European and national instruments in the field of contract law. The book is structured into two parts. The first part contains five essays exploring the origin, the ambitions and the possible future role of the CESL and its rules on the contents and effects of contracts. The second part contains specific comments to each of the model rules on the contents and effects of contracts laid down in Chapter 7 CESL (Art. 66-78). Together, the essays and comments in this volume contribute to answering the question of whether and to what extent rules such as those laid down in Art. 66-78 CESL could improve or worsen the position of consumers and businesses in comparison to the correspondent provisions of national contract law. The volume adopts a comparative perspective focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on German and Dutch law.

This book presents a complete and coherent view of the subject of Common European Sales Law from a range of European perspectives. The book offers a comparison of the CESL with the CISG, as well as pre-existing instruments, including the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) and the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL). It analyses the process of enactment of CESL and its scope of application, covering areas such as the sale of goods, the supplying (licensing) of digital content, the supply of trade-related services, and consumer protection. It examines the design of the CESL bifurcating businesses into large and small-to-medium sized enterprises, and the providing of rules covering digital content and the supply of trade-related services. Lastly, it studies the field of application of the CESL combined with the already existing EU consumer protection laws, as well as nation-specific laws.​

In October 2011, the European Commission introduced its Proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (CESL) which covers inter alia international business sales – a subject already regulated by the Convention of International Sale of Goods (CISG) which was ratified by 78 member states. How does this new Proposal fit the existing uniform sales law? How have other regions of the world managed the coexistence of global and regional sales law unification? What can Europe learn from the U.S. experience concerning the CISG and the Uniform Commercial Code? What can we learn from the African OHADA which made CISG more or less the internal law of 17 African states, what from Australia where CISG and common law exist alongside? All these questions are intensely discussed in this highly recommendable book written by renowned authors like Larry DiMatteo, Harry Flechtner, Franco Ferrari, Robert Koch, Ulrich Magnus and Bruno Zeller.

The emergence of European Contract Law as a field of enquiry has been matched by a burgeoning literature. This includes textbooks, casebooks, monographs and commentaries as well as at least one journal and huge number of journal articles. As the field has matured, so has its elaboration and analysis by scholars, though it remains a field replete with contested viewpoints and many controversies. This new work by one of Germany's most well-known and respected private law scholars, seeks to present a complete and coherent view of the subject from the perspective of the jurisdiction which has arguably had more responsibility than any other for influencing the shape and content of European contract law

The proposal from the European Commission for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (CESL) has raised divergent reactions from various parties across Europe. This volume contributes actively to this discussion, offering the lawyers' point of view. The book promotes a debate and an exchange of views among representatives from the European Commission, the European Parliament, and legal practitioners regarding the main legal issues of the CESL. The outcome is a dialogue where general concerns (such as: Do we need a CESL? Can the CESL achieve what it sets out to do? etc.) receive articulate answers considering both theoretical and practical implications of the CESL.

At its plenary session of 26 February 2014 in Strasburg, the European Parliament voted in favour of the Common European Sales Law (CESL). The legislative resolution, which was adopted by a large majority, includes two amendments which significantly extend the protection of consumers against unfair terms, not only to individually negotiated terms but also to core terms, including price terms. The combined effect of these two amendments is that contract prices, including individually negotiated prices, in consumer contracts would become subject to unfairness control. So, if these amendments will be supported by the European Commission and the Council, this will bring a major increase in consumer protection compared not only to the Commission's proposal, but also to the minimum level of protection that the unfair terms directive of 1993 currently requires the Member States to maintain in their national laws. In this contribution to the Festschrift for Hugh Beale, I argue that there is good reason for the Council and Commission to support these amendments. Extending the unfairness control in the CESL to individually negotiated terms and core terms, including price terms, contributes to avoiding injustice, increasing consumer protection and consumer confidence. At the same time, the control of individually negotiated terms and core terms does not represent any interference with private autonomy, not even if personal freedom is understood in a purely formal libertarian sense, since no one will be obliged to opt into the CESL. Nor is the unfairness control of core terms impracticable or is it likely to lead to legal uncertainty. It will even be easier, in most cases, to assess the unfairness of the contract price - and to predict its assessment - than in the case of non-core terms, since the price on a reasonably well functioning market will be available as a reference price.

The EU Member States' sales law and related areas are on the verge of a major change. With the 186 articles of the Common European Sales Law (CESL), the Commission proposes an optional legal framework that covers the entire lifecycle of sales contracts and contracts for the supply of digital content, as well as related services. Although the aim is to govern these contracts without regard to other national rules of law, several aspects are not addressed and will continue to be governed by national rules. These national rules will also continue to apply if the parties decide not to submit their transactions to the CESL. Understanding the potential impact and usefulness of the CESL requires insight into its content, the relationship between the CESL and the other applicable national rules, and a critical analysis of its advantages and disadvantages. This book is the first to delve deeply into the content of the CESL and to analyze it from a Belgian law perspective.

This briefing note explains the problems which the Common European Sales Law (CESL) sets out to solve, to what extent it actually achieves those goals and where the proposal leaves room for improvement. The paper focuses on consumer contracts concluded between parties located within the EU. It intentionally leaves the many complicated and technical details of Private International Law aside in order to make the basic structures of the current system more visible so that the usefulness of a CESL can be better appraised.

The Common European Sales Law (CESL) sets the conditions in which the mistaken party is entitled to rescission and compensation from the other party. Some of the CESL's provisions, however, are inconsistent with efficiency. First, under the CESL, as long as the mistake is essential, for the mistaken party to be allowed to rescind the contract, it is sufficient that the other party caused the mistake. From an efficiency perspective, however, causation is not enough to allow rescission for mistake. Second, the CESL permits rescission when one party failed to disclose information to the other party that would have revealed to the latter his essential mistake and the former party knew or could be expected to have known the mistake. In contrast, under efficiency, not all essential mistakes made by the one party that the other party knew or could have known about constitute grounds for rescission. Third, the CESL allows rescission for fraud, which includes non-disclosure of information. The CESL provides a list of considerations that should be taken into account in deciding whether a duty of disclosure arises. In contrast, under efficiency, there are far more concrete guidelines for determining whether a duty of disclosure arises, and in fact, under certain conditions, intentional ('fraudulent') misrepresentations are even permitted. Fourth, the CESL allows a contract to be rescinded when both parties made the same essential mistake. Yet efficiency considerations entail that this should not always be the case and that some mutual mistakes should not be grounds for rescission.