EU legislation

On 11 October, 2011, European Commission adopted a Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Common European Sales Law. 

Purpose. The overall objective of the proposal is to improve the establishment and the functioning of the internal market by facilitating the expansion of cross-border trade for business and cross-border purchases for consumers. 

Parties to the contract. The new law shall apply both for business-to-consumer and for business-to-business cross-border transactions for the sale of goods, the supply of digital content and any other related services. Pursuant to the provisions of a proposal, the seller of the supplier of a digital content shall have to be a trader. Where all the parties to a contract are traders, at least one of those parties shall have to be a small or medium-sized enterprise. 

Object. This set of rules shall deal with most of the areas which are relevant when concluding cross-border contracts and, as a result, parties shall not have to adapt different national contract laws. However, this Law shall not bind the parties, unless the parties agree that the Common European Sales Law governs their cross-border contracts.

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