The European Union Committee of the House of Lords has published a report rejecting a proposal to have a harmonised form of contract law at EU level. In December 2007, the European Commission published a draft Common Frame of Reference for European contract law as part of the Commission's plan to make European contract law more coherent. That Frame of Reference was very much a first step in a long potential road towards creating a uniform contract law basis across the EU. The House of Lords Committee said it believed that harmonisation would not be a good idea. It stated that there were major differences between English law and the proposed draft laws, such as the concept of contract, pre-contract negotiations and the rules of mistake. The Committee opposed use of the Frame of Reference as a harmonised law, an optional instrument or a set of standard terms and conditions. The one possibility that the Committee did not rule out was using the Frame of Reference as a toolbox for European legislators to draw upon where applicable with new legislation. However, overall, the Committee was strongly against the EU having an interventionist approach to contract law. Its view was that legislation for contact law tended to make things over-regulated anyway. Intervention undermined the benefits for contracting parties to have freedom of choice.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.