This book results from the Contract Law Workshop of the 20th Ius Commune Conference held 26-27 November 2015. The theme of this Workshop was: The French Contract Law Reform: a Source of Inspiration? Since the conference in November 2015, all authors have incorporated comments on the final version of the ordonnance.

This book explores commercial contract law in scholarship and legal practice, suggests new research agendas and provides a forum for debate of typical issues that might benefit from further attention by scholarship and legislatures. The authors from over ten different jurisdictions take an international and comparative approach. Not confined to EU law it re-opens the debate internationally and seeks to reclaim the wider meaning of European law as rooted in geography and cultural legal heritage. There is a need to focus on commercial contracts in more detail in research and legislation. The transactional approach, the role of recent law reform, including the new French Civil Code, cross-border dealings, substantive contract law in public international law and ICSID arbitration as well as current contractual practices like OEM, CSR, contractual co-operation, sustainability and intra-corporate arbitration contribute to a wider regulatory outlook for commercial transactions.

The 2005 Avant-projet de réforme du droit des obligations et de la prescription, also dubbed the Avant-projet Catala, suggests the most far-reaching reform of the French Civil code since it came into force in 1804. It reviews central aspects of contract law, the law of delict and the law of unjustified enrichment. There is currently a very lively debate in France as to the merits or the demerits of both the particular draft provisions and the general idea of recodification as such. This volume is the first publication to introduce the reform proposals to an English speaking audience. It contains the official English translation of the text, and distinguished private lawyers from both England and France analyse and assess particularly interesting aspects of the substantive draft provisions in a comparative perspective. Topics covered include negotiation and renegotiation of contracts, la cause, the enforcement of contractual obligations, termination of contract and its consequences, the effects of contracts on third parties, the definition of la faute, the quantification of damages, and the law of prescription. The volume also contains an overall assessment of the draft provisions by one of the most senior French judges who chaired the Working Party on the Avant-projet, established by the French Supreme Court, the Cour de cassation. The book is indispensable for comparative private lawyers and lawyers with a particular interest in French law. It is also of use to all private lawyers (both academics and practitioners) looking for information on recent international and European trends in contract and tort.

Previous edition, 1st, published in 2003.

This book presents, analyses and evaluates the Principles of Latin American Contract Law (PLACL), a recent set of provisions aiming at the harmonisation of contract law at a regional level. As such, the PLACL are the most recent exponent of the many proposals for transnational sets of 'principles of contract law' that were drafted or published over the past 20 years, either at the global or the regional level. These include the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, the Principles of European Contract Law, the (European) Draft Common Frame of Reference and the Principles of Asian Contract Law. The PLACL are the product of a working group comprising legal academics from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. The 111 articles of the instrument deal with problems of general contract law, such as formation, interpretation and performance of contracts, as well as remedies for breach. The book aims to introduce the PLACL to an international audience by putting them in their historical and comparative context, including other transnational harmonisation measures and initiatives. The contributions are authored by drafters of the PLACL and contract law experts from Europe and Latin America.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this book provides ready access to how the legal dimension of prevention against harm and loss allocation is treated in France. This traditional branch of law not only tackles questions which concern every lawyer, whatever his legal expertise, but also concerns each person’s most fundamental rights on a worldwide scale. Following a general introduction that probes the distinction between tort and crime and the relationship between tort and contract, the monograph describes how the concepts of fault and unlawfulness, and of duty of care and negligence, are dealt with in both the legislature and the courts. The book then proceeds to cover specific cases of liability, such as professional liability, liability of public bodies, abuse of rights, injury to reputation and privacy, vicarious liability, liability of parents and teachers, liability for handicapped persons, product liability, environmental liability, and liability connected with road and traffic accidents. Principles of causation, grounds of justification, limitations on recovery, assessment of damages and compensation, and the role of private insurance and social security are all closely considered. The work gives an extensive picture of the current state of law and a first indication on the future French tort law, based on the last Government proposal for a comprehensive reform of the civil liability rules. Its succinct yet scholarly nature, as well as the practical quality of the information it provides, make this book a valuable resource for lawyers in France. Academics and researchers will also welcome this very useful guide, and will appreciate its value not only as a contribution to comparative law but also as a stimulus to harmonization of the rules on tort.

This volume revisits some of the key debates about the nature and shape of contract law, in light of the impact that statutes have had on its development. With contributions from leading contract law scholars, it fills a significant gap in existing theoretical and doctrinal analyses of contract law, which rely primarily on cases to put forward accounts of the general principles and structure of contract law. Statutory rules are, typically, seen as being specific instances of legal regulation that carve out exceptions to these general principles for specific reasons of policy. This treatment of these rules has resulted in an incomplete understanding of the nature of contract law and the principles that underpin it. By drawing specifically on contract statutes, the volume produces a more complete picture of modern contract law. A companion to the ground-breaking Tort Law and the Legislature: Common Law, Statute and the Dynamics of Legal Change (Hart Publishing, 2012) this collection will have a significant impact on the study of contract law.

The French law of torts or of extra-contractual liability is widely seen as exceptional. For long it was based on a mere five articles of the Civil Code of 1804, but on this foundation the courts and legal scholars have constructed liabilities for fault and strict liability of an extraordinary breadth and significance. While the rest of the general law of obligations (including contract) in the Civil Code was reformed in 2016 by executive ordonnance, this area was left aside, being the subject in 2017 of a proposal by the French Government for the legislative reform of the law of civil liability, a new legislative category to include both contractual and extra-contractual liability. This work considers important aspects of this developing area of French law in a series of essays by French lawyers and comparative lawyers working in French law and other civil law systems. In doing so, it provides insight into the doctrinal thinking and judgments of French lawyers as well as the possible directions in which this area of the law may be developed in the future.

This text provides a comprehensive guide to the principles of European contract law. They have been drawn up by an independent body of experts from each Member State of the EU, under a project supported by the European Commission and many other organizations. The principles are stated in the form of articles, with a detailed commentary explaining the purpose and operation of each article and its relation to the remainder. Each article also has extensive comparative notes surveying the national laws and other international provisions on the topic.

This note explores the interactions between new technologies with key areas of commercial law and potential legal changes to respond to new developments in technology and businesses. Inspired by the Bali Fintech Agenda, this note argues that country authorities need to closely examine the adequacy of their legal frameworks to accommodate the use of new technologies and implement necessary legal reform so as to reap the benefits of fintech while mitigating risks. Given the cross-border nature of new technologies, international cooperation among all relevant stakeholders is critical. The note is structured as follows: Section II describes the relations between technology, business, and law, Section III discusses the nature and functions of commercial law; Section IV provides a brief overview of developments in fintech; Section V examines the interaction between technology and commercial law; and Section VI concludes with a preliminary agenda for legal reform to accommodate the use of new technologies.