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Judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters is generally perceived to be of a rather ‘specialist and technical nature’. However, for the many UK and EU citizens, families and businesses who work, live, travel and do business abroad, the current European framework for choice of law, jurisdiction and recognition and enforcement is of paramount importance. The article, therefore, explores how that framework might look like after Brexit and explores the merits and demerits of the various ways forward. It argues that the best option for both the UK and the EU would be to agree on the continued application of the existing EU instruments or to strive for conclusion of a new agreement that closely replicates these instruments. If no such agreement can be reached the UK should decide to apply the Rome I and Rome II Regulations unilaterally and sign the Lugano Convention of 2007 as well as the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements of 2005.

In May 2013, the European legislature enacted two measures relating to Alternative Dispute Resolution in consumer matters: the Directive on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR-Directive) and the Regulation on Online Dispute Resolution (ODR-Regulation). Both measures are intended to support the out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes with a view to ensure that consumers have straight-forward and low-cost access to justice. This article analyses whether and to what extent the ADR-Directive and the ODR-Regulation manage to achieve this aim in the field of cross-border consumer contracts. It sheds light on the European legislature’s competence to regulate ADR, analyses the potential benefits of cross-border ADR, details the specific problems of cross-border ADR, and determines whether and to what extent the ADR-Directive and the ODR-Regulation resolve these problems. The article concludes that the ADR-Directive and the ODR-Regulation—while providing relief for some of the problems associated with cross-border ADR—fail to resolve the two core problems of competence and language. Accordingly, it is unlikely that the ADR-Directive and the ODR-Regulation will significantly promote cross-border ADR and enhance cross-border consumer access to justice.

The principle of party autonomy is one of the “cornerstones” of European private international law including the law of international civil procedure. It is deeply embedded in most of the regulations that have been adopted by the European legislator over the last 15 years: the Brussels I Regulation, the Rome I and II Regulations, the Maintenance Regulation as well as the Succession Regulation. However, in enacting the pertaining provisions the European legislator has opted for a sectoral approach focusing on individual legal fields. It has, thereby, lost sight of the regulation of party autonomy in other legal fields and adopted different rules to deal with the same problem. The following article sheds light on the coherence of European private international law taking the protection of weaker parties from the dangers of party autonomy as an example. It analyses which parties are perceived to be weaker in the European Private International Law of contractual and non-contractual obligations, family as well as succession law and sheds light on the various regulatory approaches applied to protect these parties. The article demonstrates that the European legislator does not follow a coherent conceptual path and argues that there is – in general – a need for a more holistic analysis of European private international law that encompasses the legal field and its underlying regulatory problems as such and across the board.

The problems and challenges of international transactions and insights of economic theory in order to determine the effects of legal differences on individual and firm behavior are discussed. All strategies to overcome the international transaction dilemma and the border effect display strengths and weaknesses, and thus warrant further research.

Fifty years after the foundation of the European Communities, the single market for insurances has not yet become a reality. Despite the harmonization of insurance supervision law, insurance companies still essentially refrain from cross-border activity when it comes to small commercial and consumer risks. Since this finding is usually attributed to the lack of common rules on insurance contracts, this article sets out to lay the foundation for the harmonization of the corresponding national laws. By providing a comparative analysis of two of the most pervasive issues in consumer insurance contract law, the article proves that common law and civil law are not as far apart as commonly assumed. It thus refutes the widely held belief that the insurance contract laws of common law and civil law countries are too different to be harmonized.