Business law and labour law are driving forces and core areas of European private law. New concepts and approaches are thus required that are not limited to civil law and that are different from those traditionally embraced by national private law. These new challenges regarding the current status and perspectives of European private law are discussed in this volume by sixteen highly reputed researchers from across Europe. The contributions concern various areas of European private law, including contract, property, company, competition and labour law. This book will be an invaluable source for all those working on European law and private law within Europe.

The book is a must read for anybody interested in the future development of European private law. European Private Law News This volume contains a valuable collection of essays by a group of reputable academics, each dealing with a particular aspect of the development of a substantive law of contract at European level. The contributors have a variety of interests and perspectives. The topic is clearly of great current interest throughout the European Union and beyond. Peter Stone, University of Essex, UK European Private Law after the Common Frame of Reference brings together several interesting contributions from a distinguished group of scholars, and sheds light on the important issue of legal harmonization from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. Francesco Parisi, University of Minnesota, US and University of Bologna, Italy The Common Frame of Reference has several potential functions, some reconcilable, others mutually exclusive. Its size, its shape, its true legal nature and its content all remain contested. Modest or ambitious, toolbox or code-in-waiting? Its chameleon character is its strength and simultaneously its weakness, and equally the reason why it has attracted such attention. In this book the editors have assembled a veritable who s who in the field and it is a terrific read. Stephen Weatherill, University of Oxford, UK This book paves the way for, and initiates, the second-generation of research in European private law subsequent to the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) needed for the 21st century. The book gives a voice to the growing dissatisfaction in academic discourse that the DCFR, as it stands in 2009, does not actually represent the condensed available knowledge on the possible future of European private law. The contributions in this book focus on the legitimacy of law making through academics both now and in the future, and on the possible conceptual choices which will affect the future of European private law. Drawing on experience gained from the DCFR the authors advocate the competition of ideas and concepts. This fascinating book will be a must-read for European lawyers, private lawyers in the Member States and academics dealing with conceptual issues of the future of the national and the European private law. Advanced students in both law and international business will also find this book invaluable, as will US scholars interested in the US EU comparison of different legal orders.

Private Enforcement of European Competition and State Aid Law Current Challenges and the Way Forward Edited by: Ferdinand Wollenschläger, Wolfgang Wurmnest & Thomas M.J. Möllers The overlapping European Union (EU) regimes of competition law and State aid law both provide mechanisms allowing private plaintiffs to claim compensation for losses or damages. It is thus of significant practical value to provide, as this book does, analysis and guidance on achieving enforcement of such claims, written by renowned authorities in the two fields. The book examines the two areas of law both from an EU perspective and from the perspectives of private enforcement in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. In country reports for these major jurisdictions, as well as in more general and comparative chapters, the authors focus on such issues as the following: impediments to private enforcement; which entity is liable for damages; binding effect of decisions of competition authorities; limitation of actions; collective actions and pooling of claims; enforcement of the standstill obligation (Article 108(3) TFEU); remedies and information deficits; cooperation and coordination between national courts and the European Commission; transposition of the so-called Damages Directive (Directive 2014/104/EU) by the EU Member States; extent to which the strengthening of private enforcement of competition law has a spillover effect on State aid law; and prospects for harmonisation of State aid law. A concluding section identifies enforcement deficits and proposes ways to improve the existing legal framework. As an in-depth assessment of key obstacles and best practices in private enforcement actions, this highly informative and practical volume facilitates choice of the best forum for competition and State aid law cases. Academics and practitioners engaged with this important area of European law will appreciate the authors’ awareness of the economic need and legal particularities which could generate an effective European system of private enforcement of legitimate claims under EU competition and State aid law.

In twelve topical papers, written by renowned experts in distinct areas of the law, the reader will find out how private law and private international law instruments can serve public policy goals (such as the protection of the environment, product safety or services of general economic interest) and how these instruments interact with regulation in the proper sense. A must for those who want to explore the borderline if it exists between public and private law in the EU. Jules Stuyck, Leuven University, Belgium In the context of the current debate on the desirability and process of forming European private law (EPL), this book considers one fundamental question addressing its descriptive and normative dimension: does and should EPL pursue regulatory objectives beyond market integration? The editors argue that because national categories are of little help in grasping the characteristics of a multi-level regulatory system, it is necessary to link three perspectives: private law, regulation and conflict of laws. This book explores this interaction in four distinct fields: product liability, environmental protection, public utilities and e-commerce. The results show that EPL is highly regulatory and that the implications of this change have not been adequately considered by institutions and by scholars. The Regulatory Function of European Private Law will be of great interest to academics of law, as well as to private and public lawyers and European policymakers.

The idea of national codification is advancing on a global scale in conflict of laws. A large number of legislative projects dealing with codifying and modernizing private international law, both on the national and the supranational level, have been launched in the past few years. Among such recent initiatives, the advances taken by the European and the Japanese legislators are particularly reflecting these developments. On January 1, 2007, the new Japanese 'Act on General Rules for Application of Laws' entered into force replacing the outdated conflict of laws statute of 1898. This major reform finds its parallels in the current efforts of the European Union to create a modern private international law regime for its member states.This volume presents the first comprehensive analysis of the new Japanese private international law available in any western language and contrasts it with corresponding European developments. Most of the contributors from Japan are scholars who were actively involved in and responsible for preparing the new Act. All of them are renowned experts in the field of private international law. Leading European experts in the conflict of laws supplement the Japanese analyses with comparative contributions reflecting the pertinent discussion of parallel endeavours in the EU. To guarantee better understanding, English translations of both the present and the former Japanese statutes have been added.