The Position of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in European Contract Law

According to the European Commission, differences in contract law and the additional transaction costs and complexity they generate in cross-border transactions dissuade a considerable number of traders, in particular SMEs, from expanding into markets of other Member States.

These differences are also said to limit competition in the internal market. Furthermore, they underlie the European Commission’s draft Regulation for a Common European Sales Law (CESL). The 2012 Ius Commune workshop on Contract Law was dedicated to the position of SMEs in European Contract law and focused on their contractual relations with other SMEs (SME2SME), consumers (SME2C and C2SME) and larger companies (B2SME and SME2B). Is there a need for a kind of “consumer law for professionals”?