The Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe Recodification and Recent Developments

The Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe examines the new codifications, reforms, and other recent developments in Central and Southeast Europe which have significantly modernized the law of obligations in the last two decades, focusing particularly on the legal systems of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Turkey.

With chapters authored by prominent academics and promising young legal scholars, this book discusses the results of the modernizations and describes the legislative reforms of the law of obligations that are underway or are discussed and advocated for in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe. Divergences of the new civil codes and other legislative acts from earlier legal solutions are identified and the rationale behind these departures is analysed, as well as the introduction of the new legal institutes in the law of obligations in these parts of the world. The Introduction provides a concise country-by-country overview of the recodification, modernization, and reform of the law of obligations in Central and Southeast Europe. In Part I, chapters discuss the process of recodification in the Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary, with focus on the main novelties in their contract and tort law. The chapters in Part II then discuss several, more specific legal institutes of the law of obligations, and other recent developments and contemporary challenges to the law of obligations in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Turkey.

This book is of interest to legal scholars in the field of private law, as well as to students, practitioners, members of law reform bodies, and civil servants in Central and Southeast Europe, and beyond.

ForewordIntroduction (1) Recodification and Recent Developments in the Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe (Part I) Recodification of the Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe (2) The Conception and Institutional Novelties of Recodification of Private Law in the Slovak Republic (3) Recodifying Tort Law in Central Europe in the Beginning of Twenty-First Century (Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary) (4) Limitations of Freedom of Contract in the New Codifications of the Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe: An Inspiration for the New Polish Civil Code? (5) Liability for Breach of Contract in Hungarian Law (Part II) Specific Institutes and Recent Developments in the Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe (6) Ascertainment of a Claim as a Requirement for Set-Off: Different Approaches in Comparative and the Czech Law (7) Restitution of Use Value of Money in Unjustified Enrichment: Some Open Questions in the Law of Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia (8) The Use of Negative Interest Rates with a Special Reference to Banking Cash Deposit Contracts in the Law of Croatia (9) The Formality of Real Estate Transactions in the Law of Slovenia and Croatia in the Light of New Technologies (10) A Contradiction Arising from an Annulment Decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court: The Unique Problem of a Unique Provision of the New Code of Obligations

Zvonimir Slakoper is a Full Professor of Civil Law and the Head of the Department of Civil Law at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, Faculty of Law, and a Full Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, Faculty of Economics and Business. His expertise covers the law of obligations, especially banking contracts, and company law, and he has written, co-authored and edited several books, including university textbooks, and many journal articles in these fields.

Ivan Tot is an Assistant Professor of Commercial Law in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and a Co-Chair of the European Law Institute Croatian Hub. His research mainly focuses on the law of obligations, banking law and European contract law.