The Official Journal of the European Union has published on the 4th July 2008 the Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I) to be applied to all contracts to be signed after 17th December 2009. The EC Regulation harmonise the regulations in this area in order to maintain and develop an area of freedom, security and justice in the European Union.

This Regulation apply, in situations involving a conflict of laws, to contractual obligations in civil and commercial matters in the European Union and outside EU according to international. This is a universal law which means that any law specified by this Regulation shall be applied whether or not it is the law of a Member State.

Material scope

The regulation applies to contracts of carriage, consumer contracts, insurance contracts, individual employment contracts. Some contracts will be excluded from the scope of this Regulation:

• Questions involving the status or legal capacity of natural Persons.
• Obligations arising out of family relationships and relationships, including maintenance obligations;
• Obligations arising out of matrimonial property regimes, property regimes of relationships deemed by the law applicable to such relationships to have comparable effects to marriage, and wills and succession;
• Obligations arising under bills of exchange, cheques and promissory notes and other negotiable instruments;
• Arbitration agreements and agreements on the choice of court;
• Questions governed by the law of companies and other bodies, corporate or unincorporated.
• The question whether an agent is able to bind a principal, or an organ to bind a company or other body corporate or unincorporated, in relation to a third party;
• Constitution of trusts and the relationship between settlors, trustees and beneficiaries;
• Obligations arising out of dealings prior to the conclusion of a contract;
• Insurance contracts arising out of operations carried out by organisations concerning life assurance

The Regulation will replace the Rome Convention in the Member States, except as regards the territories of the Member States which fall within the territorial scope of that Convention and to which this Regulation does not apply pursuant to Article 299 of the Treaty to be applied to contracts concluded after 17 December 2009.