Public supply of optional standardized consumer contracts: A rationale for the Common European Sales Law?

This article forms part of a special edition of the Common Market Law Review.

Publishers Abstract:
This paper is of course not the first attempt to assess the idea of an optional instrument in the field of EU contract law. However, the author's contribution is intended to present this discussion from an angle that may seem unusual. He will treat the body of B2C rules provided by the Common European Sales Law (CESL) as a supply of optional standardized contracts. Contracts are standardized where across different (though not necessarily all) suppliers and customers in a given market, individual contracts mainly consist of the same pre-defined boilerplate identifiable by the same label.

In part 2 of this paper, the author will argue that, in principle, a plausible rationale for the strategy pursued by the Commission can be found in the welfare increasing effect of a public supply of optional standardized consumer contracts. In part 3, he will examine the feasibility of such a result if the CESL is introduced into the context of EU consumer contract law as it stands.