Abstract:
European legislation currently does not clearly determine in what language standard contract terms must be drafted in order to be validly incorporated into consumer contracts so they can be relied upon by a trader. This may be particularly problematic in the case of a cross-border contract as parties may not speak the same language. In this paper, I indicate to what extent the transparency requirement may play a role in determining the language in which the standard contract terms are to be drafted. Finally, on the basis of experiments I conducted with colleagues, I conclude that traders should be required to provide the standard contract terms in the contracting language, but that there is no need to require them to provide the standard contract terms in the consumer’s mother tongue.
Loos, Marco, The Language of Standard Contract Terms in Online B2C-Contracts (September 23, 2016). Amsterdam Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No 2016-45; Centre for the Study of European Contract Law Working Paper No 2016-09.
First posted 2016-10-06 07:02:13
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