Electronic commerce in the context of the european contract law project
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Electronic Commerce in the Context of the European Contract Law Project Christina Ramberg* I. Introduction The original Commission on European Contract Law (also called the Lando Group) presented in 1999 a product called Principles of European Contract Law (PECL). It was in the form of draft articles covering the main contract law issues (such as formation of contracts, invalidity, interpretation and content, breach of contracts and remedies). Later the Lando Group published an extended version covering prescription and other matters. This work was a great success and clearly showed that it is not impossible and indeed would be useful to harmonise contract law in Europe by other means than the present way by directives. Many other academic groups have followed the Lando Group and in different areas produced draft articles of European law related to inter alia specific contracts. The group in charge of the present report1 is the Task Force on E-Commerce of the Study Group on a European Civil Code. It was established in autumn 2003. The aim is to make an analysis of the extent to which PECL and the other principles produced by the Study Group for a European Civil Code encompass electronic aspects. The task force takes into account the fairly new EU Directives relating to electronic commerce and other practical aspects that may give rise to a need for changes, clarifications or comments. The members of the Task Force are Christina Ramberg (Sweden) (head), Matthias Storme (Belgium), Marco Loos (The Netherlands) and Hector McQueen (Scotland). They are all familiar with PECL and members of the Study Group for a European Civil Code. They have also taken into consideration the work done by the Acquis Group. The working method has been to analyse every article in PECL and the articles produced by the Study Group. The purpose has been to ascertain whether the articles are in harmony with EU Directives on e-commerce and also in harmony with other needs that consumers and businesses may have due to the increased use of electronic communication. When a problematic issue is identified, either changes in the black letter text of the articles or clarifications in the comments are suggested. It should be emphasized that the findings and proposals in this report are not yet firmly anchored and thus any comment is likely to be highly influential.
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* Professor Christina Ramberg, University of Göteborg. 1 The article is based on a report for a workshop in Brussels on 18 October 2005 organised by the European Commission.
Electronic Commerce in the Context of the European Contract Law Project
The Task Force has identified and suggested amendments in relation to the following e-commerce issues: -
Input errors (mistake) Cooling-off periods in consumer transactions Unsolicited goods and services The definitions of ‘reach’, ‘send’ and ‘dispatch’ in electronic communications The definition of writing Signatures in relation to personal security by consumers
The Task Force proposes not to have a separate chapter on e-commerce, but that
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