This paper challenges the claim that there is regulatory competition in the areas of contract law and civil litigation. It is frequently assumed that law makers reform their contract laws and dispute resolution mechanisms with the purpose of attracting ‘users’, i.e. parties to cross-border contracts who choose the contract law or the courts of a given legal system. I shall discuss this assumption and its plausibility in the first part of the paper. In the second part I will test the assumption by presenting the available empirical evidence on the choices of contract law and forum that businesses in Europe actually make. For a long time such data has been largely absent from the debate. Moreover, I assemble evidence of law makers competing for the production of the most attractive legal regimes in the areas of contract law and civil litigation. I conclude that meaningful regulatory competition in the areas concerned cannot be predicted with confidence; nor is there evidence of its existence.

Reprint in J Kleineman (ed), A Common Frame of Reference for European Contract Law, Stockholm: Jure Förlag 2011, 155-199

pp 1-184

pp. 235-268.

xxv + 636 pp. The Court of Justice has been alluding to 'abuse and abusive practices' for more than thirty years, but for a long time the significance of these references has been unclear. Few lawyers examined the case law, and those who did doubted whether it had led to the development of a legal principle. Within the last few years there has been a radical change of attitude, largely due to the development by the Court of an abuse test and its application within the field of taxation. In this book, academics and practitioners from all over Europe discuss the development of the Court's approach to abuse of law across the whole spectrum of European Union law, analysing the case-law from the 1970s to the present day and exploring the consequences of the introduction of the newly designated 'principle of prohibition of abuse of law' for the development of the laws of the EU and those of the Member States.

ISBN: 978-1-84113-938-8

The Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (ccxxx + 1319 pp) is written by an international team of distinguished academics and practitioners. They offer an article by article commentary on the Principles to provide an accessible guide to the existing case law and legal literature, as well as a comparison with national and international legislation. The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts set forth rules of general contract law for the use by merchants and business people in cross border transactions. Since their first publication in 1994 the Principles have proved to be a serious alternative to national contract laws in international disputes decided by arbitral tribunals, such as those administered by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). At the same time, they have been accepted as a model for reforming the laws on international contracts by countries such as Russia, China, Estonia, and Lithuania. This book provides commentary on the substantive rules on contracts with a comprehensive analysis of each provision. As a result, this book aims to increase understanding of the rules governing international commercial contracts and aid the practical application of the Principles.

ISBN: 978-0-19-929175-5