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Mandatory rules in civil and labor law: a method's matter Through a systematic comparison between the general law on contracts and the special regulation of employment relationships, the essay aims to identify the common characteristics of the mandatory rules in these two areas of the legal system and then to examine the differences and the reasons that justify the specialty of labor law. With respect to the first question, mandatory rule is recognized as a unitary dogmatic category due to the invalidity, which derives from it. In this sense, what all mandatory rules have in common is not the general or super-individual relevance of the protected interest, pre-existing legal regulation, but the way in which the law protects it, through remedies that are not within the power of disposal of either party. Beyond this, a significant difference between the mandatory rules of private law and labor law depends on a different quality of public intervention. In the first case, contractual justice is achieved through the intervention of the judge, who corrects ex post any imbalances that may result from abuses of contractual power. In the second case, the personal interests of the employee are protected by preventing the exercise of contractual autonomy beyond the limits established ex ante directly by law.

The essay deals with the issue relating to the invalidity of the contract extorted by threat, criticizing ordinance no. 17568/2002 in which the Supreme Court, applying art. 1418 of the Civil Code, affirmed the nullity of the contract due to contrary to the mandatory criminal law rather than its annullment due to duress. The essay reaches a different conclusion, arguing that nullity occurs only in cases where the violation concerns the agreed regulation and not the pre-contractual behavior of one of the parties.

Attraverso un confronto critico con le opinioni espresse da G. Calabresi ed E. Al Mureden nel libro Driverless cars, l’A. si interroga su quale sarà il ruolo della responsabilità civile in seguito all’introduzione delle nuove tecnologie e dell’intelligenza artificiale. In questo dibattito, particolare rilievo assume la questione se sia consentito lasciare a un algoritmo la "scelta tragica" di chi deve essere salvatoe chi sacrificato, interiorizzando in esso il criterio dello stato di necessità o un diverso criterio etico, a scegliendo tra diverse opzioni. Da una prospettiva più in generale l’autore valuta se le regole attualmente vigenti sono giuste ed efficienti nel disegnare la mobilità del futuro, anche attraverso un esame di soluzioni alternative proposte de iure condendo., Through a critical comparison with the opinions expressed by G. Calabresi and E. Al Mureden in the book Driverless cars, the author questions what the role of civil liability will be, following the introduction of new technologies and artificial intelligence. In this debate, particular importance is given to the question of whether it is allowed to leave to an algorithm the "tragic choice" of who must be saved and who must be sacrificed, internalizing in it the criterion of the state of necessity or a different ethical criterion, choosing between different options. From a more general perspective, the author assess whether the rules currently in force are fair and efficient in designing the mobility of the future, also through an examination of alternative solutions proposed de iure condendo.

The essay focuses on the links between mistake as a defect in consent and pre-contractual duty of information, both governed by functional rules to ensure that parties consciously exercise their freedom of contract. From this perspective the author addresses the question of whether the expansion of information duties during negotiations also increases cases in which false or incomplete representation of facts by one of the contracting parties affects the validity of contract. In this regard, arguments can be drawn from the Italian legal system that exclude the relevance of the lack of due informations as misrepresentation causing invalidity. On the other hand, it is admitted that violation of pre-contractual duty of disclosure, within certain limits, can give rise to liability even where the contract is valid. Both compensatory remedies and contractual invalidity, in fact, protect the party who was mistaken or not duly informed, according to different strategies and methods, balancing this protection with the interest of the counterparty, who relied on the validity of the contract or invested resources to obtain such information. Given that validity and liability rules govern the same conclusion of the contract, it is possible to combine invalidity and compensatory remedies where the respective conditions for application exist. This two types of legal protection, in fact, even when they overlap, maintain their conceptual and functional autonomy, so that the remedies provided by the former do not obliterate those resulting from the violation of the latter.

The essay resumes with in-depth and additions the report at the Conference for the presentation of the volumes “The words of law. Scritti in onore of Carlo Castronovo ”and intends to highlight the most current methodological aspects of the scientific production of this scholar. Far from believing the premises of the juridical discourse uncritically true, he rejects both the positivist postulate of self-sufficiency of the legislative dictate and any form of anti-conceptualism. In this sense, he denies that interpretation can be reduced to a political argumentation, leaving the legal concepts in a vague and indistinct form. In fact, private law is legitimized not by virtue of the contingent will of the legislator, but by the intrinsic rationality of the legal system, as revealed by the work of legal science. The judge can thus respond to the social demands of justice by giving substance to the ethical principle which finds its historical objectification in the laws in force.

The essay aims to verify if and in what way the contractual freedom can be reconciled with the judicial review on the justice of the contract. From this perspective, the legal system cannot replace the will of the contracting parties, imposing or prohibiting a specific negotiating regulation deemed "just" or "unfair" a priori, but it can disapprove of those agreements that ex post are illegally imposed by the stronger party. According to this logic, judicial control over private autonomy is admitted only in cases where any inequity reflects inequalities between the parties as one of them has wrongly taken advantage of it. However, given that some disparity between the contracting parties is found in all exchanges, a rebalancing intervention cannot be general nor be carried out indiscriminately, but is legitimized only in the presence of certain normative situations that justify it rationally. In these cases, contractual justice takes place in the form of protection of the weaker contractual party with respect to abuses of the stronger one that prevented him from effectively exercising his autonomy.

The essay questions whether and to what extent the law of obligations provides balanced and consistent solutions to the exceptional difficulties in fulfilling the obligations caused by the pandemic emergency. To this end, the direct application of the principle of solidarity is excluded and cannot justify judicial decisions that are incompatible with the letter of the law or contrary to the rationality of the system. On the other hand, the use of equity is allowed as a criterion for integrating the legislative provision and implementing a rule that has already been positivized in accordance with its rationale. From this perspective, the essay examines the temporary or partial impossibility of performance. Liability is also excluded when the contingencies related to the Pandemic, while not making the performance absolutely impossible, have prevented the debtor from acquiring the means that he was required to use. Without prejudice to the general principle according to which the lack of financial resources does not constitute an impossibility of performance, on the basis of an interpretation of the emergency legislation, the debtor exceptionally is not liable if he proves that the delay in the fulfillment of pecuniary obligations is not attributable to his fault, but to the observance of the measures for containing the infections. Where instead the debtor has the money necessary to pay but, precisely because of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the payment would expose the survival of his company to the risk of serious and irreparable consequences, the duty of good faith, which also binds the creditor, prevents him from demanding timely fulfillment, indirectly excluding the debtor's liability.

The introduction of technologies that make vehicles safer is important to address the foreseeable criticalities of road traffic due to the lower capacity of public transport as a result of social distancing measures. In this unique situation, the objective of limiting the spread of the epidemic cannot overshadow the prevention of accidents and human health must be guaranteed with respect to all possible risks. However, new safety systems are not completely failsafe. With these cases in mind, the article proposes to verify the extent to which current rules on civil liability in Italian law may offer solutions to damages caused by highly automated vehicles in terms of preventing harmful events and allocating their costs according to criteria of justice and economic efficiency. Within this logic, the analysis also looks at the rules on the distribution of compensation costs among the various parties that may be jointly and severally liable (driver, owner, custodian or manufacturer).

The chapter is primarily aimed at verifying whether the retention of title clause can be used in real estate bargaining, examining the problem also from the perspective of its enforceability to purchasers and creditors of the parties. Issues relating to breach of contract and the effects of termination are also analyzed. On the basis of these considerations, the author examines the differences between the retention of title agreement and other similar contractual figures (e.g. leasing and rent to buy), highlighting the reasons that may determine the parties to choose a contract rather than the 'other.