Within each relevant area of law, the following questions have to be answered:
(i) What contractual regulations are enforceable under one law, but not under another one?
The research will analyse contractual regulations that are common in commercial practice and will test their compatibility with Norwegian law and at least another law that may become applicable. The identification of the specific contractual regulations and of the national laws to be compared shall take into account the practical experience and needs of the project’s partners.
Examples of contractual regulations that may be unenforceable are:
Company law: voting rights, competence of corporate bodies, assessment of value of in kind contributions, binding effect of a commitment, etc;
Competition law: cooperation on marketing, licensing, joint production, etc;
Property law: retention of title, pledge of future cash flow, collateralization of contractual rights, etc;
Insolvency law: early termination, acceleration, set-off, netting of payments, etc;
Administrative regulations: Fees due for public services, access to public infrastructure, calculation of taxable base, conditions to exercise activity subject to licensing, transferability of licences, etc;
Labour law: reorganisation of activity, etc;
Contract law: termination of agency, exclusion of liability, break off of negotiations, etc.
(ii) Are there restrictions to the parties’ ability to choose the governing law in that area, and, if so, what country’s law is applicable instead of the law chosen by the parties?
The research will analyse the conflict rules that are applicable in the relevant area of law. Norwegian private international law shall be assessed, as well as the European. Where there is no unitary European private international law, the main principles of the most important alternatives shall be analysed.
(iii) Assuming that the dispute was subject to arbitration and the arbitral tribunal followed the choice made by the parties, would the award be valid and enforceable? Are the substantive rules contained in the law that should have been applicable of such a nature that an award is ineffective if it disregards them?
The research will analyse the rules on the effectiveness of international arbitral awards with the purpose of verifying to what extent disregard of the substantive rules described under item (i) above may be an obstacle to effectiveness of the award, if they are applicable under the conflict rules described under item (ii) above.
There is a high degree of harmonisation in this area, therefore court decisions from a variety of countries are relevant both to Norwegian and to other countries’ law.
You can see the Research plan here.
The main activity of the project is to produce research papers.
The research papers shall be written by research assistants (post graduate students at their last year of master studies) who write a 60 credits thesis.
The research shall be supervised by the project manager (professor in private international law and international commercial law), the project’s Partners, or scholars or practitioners expert in the substantive field of law that is relevant to the analysed clause - depending on the expertise and the availability.