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The article discusses how the pre-sale mandatory information disclosure requirements in Community legislation relating to financial products should be carried out and reviewed. Some of the imperfections in the current disclosure requirements are highlighted and suggestions for a critical evaluation are made.

The key elements that contribute to the issue of corporate governance in the European community are discussed. A re-definition of the corporate objective and corporate governance in light of the EC Law is also highlighted.

An explanatory note to facilitate understanding of the best practices proposed in the Best Practice Note is presented. The Best Practice Note is formulated for the ICC Task Force for Arbitrating Competition Law Issues in Paris and is meant for arbitrators who have been appointed to adjudicate EC competition law and lays down parameters of the EC competition law regime and their relevance for international arbitration.

The Best Practice Note is formulated for the ICC Task Force for Arbitrating Competition Law Issues in Paris by Carl Nisser and Gordon Blanke. It lays down best practices that the European Commission and the international arbitrator are to apply as guidelines in terms of the Commission's involvement as amicus curiae in international arbitral proceedings from the viewpoint of the ICC Task Force.

The author expresses his personal opinion on the merits and demerits of Draft Note on Best Practices. He explains the reasons for the lack of consensus within the Task Force on the Note, the dangers of standardizing all aspects of arbitration and highlights the controversies that are likely to arise from the attempt to define adequate guidelines in international arbitration proceedings.

The rules to be followed by arbitrators regarding Articles of 81 and 82 which belong to the basic principles of public policy and their relationship with the Eucopean Commission are provided.

Arbitrations provided for by merger commitments are not a regulatory instrument but a tool of private enforcement which ensures enforcement of merger commitments, especially for the settlement of the disputes which may arise in relation to them.

The long term developments expected in European tax law are examined. The need for cooperation among European Commission, European Court of Justice and European Union member states for framing rules governing consolidation of direct taxes is discussed.

The paper informs about initiatives of the EC Commission to create a set of instruments for advancing a European contract law, in particular a 'common frame of reference.' It questions the underlying assumptions in the still somewhat unclear and open Commission communications. It doubts whether EU has any competence to harmonise contract law under the internal market jurisdiction of Art. 95 EC. As an alternative, it proposes the elaboration and eventual adoption of an EU consumer contract law regulation (ECCLR) based on Art. 153 (3) b) EC which would take direct effect and be limited to minimal, yet directly applicable rules on consumer protection in contract law.

The impact of European Commission's decision to withdraw copyright licensing clause, which is incorporated in dealership agreements for pay-television operators, is examined.

In this paper it is argued that even though the consumer cannot (anymore) be reduced to a 'homo oeconomicus,' competition law is the cornerstone of consumer law and that the decentralised application of EC competition law since 1 May 2004 (pursuant to Regulation 1/2003) gives new opportunities for an effective application of the EC competition rules to the benefit of consumers. While the EC Treaty (and the future Constitution for Europe) aim to protect consumers in the framework of the internal market programme, as well as on the basis of a genuine 'consumer protection' policy, it is submitted that an effective competition policy remains crucial for consumers in a market economy. Consumer interests are generally diffuse and therefore difficult to protect via legal procedures. Nevertheless a further development of remedies which are already available in Community law (nullity of restrictive agreements, claims for damages, actions for a cease and desist order, and so on) will contribute to an increased application of the competition rules in the interest of consumers.

A reference to the need to create confident cross-border consumers who can contribute to the strengthening of the internal market has often been used as one of the main arguments for EC consumer policy and legislation. The argument has been presented in order to justify both the creation of a minimum safety net for consumers (the minimum confidence argument) and the current turn towards more total harmonization of consumer protection (the harmonised confidence argument). In the paper these lines of argument are critically evaluated with reference to common sense knowledge about the behaviour of consumers as well as on the basis of Eurobarometer data concerning consumer confidence. In this light the substantive minimum harmonization measures which have been justified with reference to the need for promoting consumer confidence seem only to a limited extent relevant with respect to the creation of such confidence. The current turn towards total harmonisation most certainly cannot be justified in this way. Other substantive measures, facilitating the access to a counter-party, would be more important in order to create consumer confidence in cross-border shopping, but the Community has almost systematically avoided adopting such measures.

The article provides a managerial perspective on EU Merger Control Regulation policies. With an understanding of the European Commission's guidance notice, there should be a decreased risk of proposed deals being damaged or broken up due to regulatory issues.

Byline: Stephen Weatherill (1) Abstract: In July 2001 the European Commission published a Communication to the Council and the European Parliament, its so-called 'Green Paper' on European Contract Law (COM (2001) 398). This document seeks feedback on the options sketched by the Commission for future European Community action in the contract law field. The present note, which incorporates as an Appendix the text of the Green Paper itself, is designed to explain the background to the Commission's intervention (the first section, pp. 339--350 below), to provide a brief commentary on the content of the Green Paper (the second section, pp. 350--356) and then to assess the constitutional implications of a proposed advance towards a European Contract Law (the third section, pp. 356--371). It is argued that the debate about the creation of a European contract law is properly seen not merely as a matter of cultural feasibility and of commercial desirability, but that in addition assessment of the EC's potential contribution is heavily conditioned by increasing constitutional anxieties about the EC's legitimate role in the field of market regulation. The Green Paper avoids explicit treatment of the constitutional dimension of European contract law, yet, it is argued in this note, this is in fact unavoidable in the wake of the European Court's seminal judgment of October 2000 in the so-called 'Tobacco Advertising' case in which it for the first time invalidated a measure of harmonisation of laws on the basis that an insufficient connection with the process of market-building had been shown by the European Community's legislature. This demands that the constitutional validity of legislative proposals in the field of contract law be examined with care, for the EC, an entity created by an international Treaty, has been endowed with no general competence as lawmaker in this or any other field, even though past legislative practice may have tended to obscure this constitutionally fundamental principle. Author Affiliation: (1) European Community Law, University of Oxford, and Somerville College, Oxford, OX2 6HD Article History: Registration Date: 10/10/2004

Byline: Peter Rott (1) Abstract: This article briefly outlines the development of EC law on litigation by consumer associations (Part A) and then analyses German and U.K. law, highlighting the recent law reforms instigated by the adoption of Directive 98/27/EC on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests (Parts B and C). The article argues that the traditionally divergent approaches in Germany and the U.K. are continued and reveals differences both in the details of the relevant regulations and in the general role consumer groups will be able to play in protecting the collective interests of consumers. It is demonstrated that the reluctance of the U.K. approach is neither in line with the intentions of the EC nor justified in the light of the German experience. The article concludes with proposals for the U.K. law reform and argues that a less restrictive, or maybe revolutionary, approach should be followed by the U.K. legislator (Part D). Author Affiliation: (1) University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN, U.K. Article History: Registration Date: 10/10/2004

Analysis was made on the efforts of European Union countries to deregulate the gas industry, introduce competition and to eliminate monopolies. Institutional disparities were identified and examined among the countries. Strategies implemented by gas companies based on the Gas Directive adopted by the European Commission were described as well as the implications of the transposition of the Gas Directive into the national laws of the European countries.