Recent EU Draft CESL discussed in Chicago – „European Contract Law: A Law-and-Economics Perspective“ (April 27, 2012)
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/events/europeancontractlaw
Conference on ‚European contract law: a law-and-economics perspective‚ in Chicago considered a wide range of views on the development of European contract law, focusing on the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (CESL).
While the proposed CESL met some heavy criticism from speakers from both sides of the Atlantic, suggestions for improvement and for the further development of European contract law took diverging directions. In general, and perhaps not surprising in light of the economic angle of the conference, it appeared that the US speakers were rather sceptical about further-going regulation of consumer transactions in the EU’s internal market. The European speakers, on the other hand, mostly sought to combine their criticism with suggestions for the elaboration of measures of EU contract law within the existing acquis communautaire. The different approaches generated a lively debate on general issues (harmonisation, regulatory competition, mandatory rules, optional instruments) as well as specific topics (consumer protection techniques, the doctrine of mistake, remedies, custom, precontractual liability, Eurobarometer surveys).