European Sales Law

20 years after the 1999 EU sales law harmonization an extensive and future oriented reform has occurred with the 2019 Sale of Goods Directive. The reform infused features of durability, sustainability and digitalisation into classical sales law, transforming the contract into a long-term relationship, also forcing an adaptation of distribution networks.

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European Sales Law: Challenges in the 21st Century covers more than two decades of EU sales law history. When the project of a full-fledged (optional) EU Sales Law Code failed, the central ideas were taken up in preparing the 2019/770 Digital Content Directive and the 2019/771 Sale of Goods Directive. The digital content part attracted considerably more attention whereas the sales part arguably included the more doctrinal and foundational reform of EU Sales Law, first enshrined in the 1999/44 Directive. This volume focuses on the sales reform. After 20 years, the novelties range from more detailed structures, to completely new phenomena such as goods with digital components, as well as innovative policies like sustainability in the design of contract law. The contributions discuss important aspects of this doctrinal and policy design-oriented reform of EU sales law. The volume also examines the system-building in this renewal and in the challenges ahead, as well as the changes still needed to complete such policy reform. Proposed changes range from a new typology of goods to their modified conformity criteria, and continues with the context of networks of distribution contracts and the remedies all now more related to durability and digital contexts. Finally, the book discusses the radical alternative, i.e. servitisation contracts, which put goods at permanent disposal for sharing.