Spring Semester (March 1 - May 31, 2023)
Course
European Private Law 2023
Prof. Chris Thomale
The course offers a general introduction to private law as a regulatory tool in Europe. This will include both primary and secondary sources of the European Union as well as common structures of Member State private laws. After a brief survey of the constitution and institutional framework of the EU, we will focus on selected fields of private law regulated at the EU level, such as, notably, civil procedure, the conflict of laws, company law and capital markets law. We will then move on to investigate, how these harmonised areas of the law interact with the multiplicity of substantive private laws in force in the various Member States, notably with their laws of torts in the context of private law enforcement. Eventually, we will study common structures of Member State contract laws within and beyond harmonising EU legislation. By analysing the various levels of European Private Law, we will try and develop a theoretical and political outlook for the ongoing European regulatory integration process as a whole.