INTERNATIONAL MANDATORY LAW IN THE ROME I REGULATION

Abstract

The topic deals with the civil law side of the so-called international commercial law. It addresses the question of whether and when we have to apply foreign overriding norms when assessing a situation with a foreign connection within the framework of the Rome I Regulation - i.e. the international contract law that has now been standardized throughout the EU. Overriding norms - these are provisions that serve the overriding public interest of the issuing state, but order legal consequences under civil law, for example antitrust, import and export law, foreign exchange law or cultural property protection norms that lead to the nullity of the contract.1 While the application of domestic overriding norms (Art. 9 Para. 2 Rome I-VO) is generally recognized if there is a sufficient domestic connection, there have always been fundamental reservations about the application of foreign overriding norms, precisely because they take foreign public interests into account and not our own. Do we have to take such norms into account at all when assessing a situation with a foreign connection? In order to answer this question, Art. 9 Para. 3 Rome I-VO now, for the first time, attempts a regulation that is directly applicable in almost all European member states, but unfortunately only timidly and not very clearly.