Using insights from multilevel governance and pluralism, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the development of European private law in the Dutch and German legal order. It focuses on the question whether the coexistence of national and European state and non-state actors is detrimental or beneficial for the predictability, consistency, accessibility and responsiveness of European private law.

In numerous fields of law, ranging from family law to company law, private actors increasingly set their own rules, revert to private enforcement of those rules and choose the applicable law.

The international character of shipping and transport has always been a great incubator for harmonisation of law. Recently, there has been increasing interest within the EU in harmonisation of general private law, with different harmonisation instruments such as common core, PECL and DCFR coming into existence. In this book the possible impact of these private law harmonisation instruments on shipping and transport law is assessed.

There is an increasing debate on the way in which the EU has developed and what it must look like in the future. This debate includes a discussion on one of the core aspects of European integration: at which level should the rules be set and who decides where the authority to do so should lie? Private law has an important role to play in this discussion. Many private law rules touch on the core of the internal market as they serve to foster tr...

Differences in contract law and the additional transaction costs and complexity they generate in cross-border transactions dissuade a considerable number SMEs from expanding into markets of other Member States. These differences are also said to limit competition in the internal market.

This study provides an overview of the existing acquis communautaire in property law, and presents a proposal for the future development of this field of law. It deals with the influence of the EU’s four freedoms on national property law and discusses whether or not the EU would have the competence to actively create property law, and the extent to which it has already done so.

This book discusses two major instruments of European contract law that saw the light in 2011: the Consumer Rights Directive (CRD) and the proposal for a Common European Sales Law (CESL). Both instruments aim at improving the internal market.

Modern society is full of linked contracts: a plurality of separately concluded contracts that are somehow interrelated. However, contract law is still primarily centred on traditional contractual relations between (just) two parties. This book therefore explores the legal consequences of the existence of linked contracts. It thereby provides insights for practice and academia in this new phenomenon.

The Draft Common Frame of Reference is the result of more than 25 years of academic research on European private law, and was published in October 2009. Against this background, this book presents and critically analyses the DCFR, and situates it in relation to current Belgian and European private law.