Tuesday 26 March 2013

Legal-economic reflections on CESL

The European Commission's proposal for a Regulation on an optional Common European Sales Law is slowly but steadily making its way through the legislative process. At this time, it is being discussed in different committees of the European Parliament.

Summaries of the discussions that have so far taken place within these committees can be found on the Edinburgh European Private Law News blog. Most recently, Eric Clive reported on the discussion within the Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee ('IMCO on CESL briefly'). As becomes clear from this summary, the proposed CESL continues to divide opinions. While some commentators give constructive comments for the amendment of the proposal, others doubt its added value for the facilitation of transactions concluded on the European internal market.

The legal-economic merits of both points of view were discussed at a conference that was organised by Omri Ben-Shahar in Chicago last year (on which we reported earlier). The final versions of the conference papers have now been published in a special issue of the Common Market Law Review and may provide the European Parliament, as well as other interested parties, with insights into the costs and benefits of introducing a CESL and into the dynamics of regulatory competition in European contract law.