SMEs in European Contract Law: A Rawlsian Perspective

Unweaving the CESL: Legal-Economic Reason and Institutional Imagination in European Contract Law

“…Given contract law's facilitative role in the exchange of primary goods, a case can be made for it belonging to Rawls's basic structure of a just society. 49 Contract law as an institution would promote background justice and regard the distribution of primary goods, in accordance with Rawls's principles of justice, rather than the redistribution of wealth. True, this might imply a "sacrifice to efficiency".…”

UNFAIR CONTRACT TERMS AND SMEs IN BW AND DRAFT CC OF SERBIA

“…After all "the policing of unfair terms (especially limitation clauses) and doctrines like Wegfall der Geschäftsgrundlage (frustration of contract) were first developed in business-to-business (b2b), not in business-to-consumer (b2c) relationships." 5 In this article, the author choose to analyze the position of SMEs when it comes to policing of unfair standard contract terms, as it is repeated that the protection against unfair contract terms is a paradigm of weaker party protection 6 and that it is "one of the most obvious ways to foster contractual justice". 7 Furthermore, it was compared the way in which the control of unfair contract terms is regulated in the Civil Code of the Netherlands (Burgerlijk Wetboek or BW) 8 and in the Draft Civil Code of Serbia (DGZ) 9 .…”

“…Afterwards the solutions offered in the codes will be compared (4). Then the pros and cons for the protection of SMEs will be addressed (5) and finally, some conclusions will be drawn (6).…”