All posts tagged: Choice of law

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Rethinking Contractual Choice of Law: An Analysis of Relation Syndrome

The doctrine of contractual choice of law provides the parties with the power to select the law that governs their business or other private activities crossing jurisdictional boundaries. An issue facing the choice is whether the law chosen by the parties must bear certain relation between the enacting state or country and the parties, transactions or disputes. In the United States, such relation is required in order for the chosen law to become enforceable, but elsewhere in the world, the relation is not essential to the choice of law by the parties. In 2001, as part of their initiative to have a broader reform, the American Law Institute and the National Conference of Commissioner on Uniform State Laws attempted to replace U.C.C. §1-105 with §1-301. The major change was the deletion of the “reasonable relation” requirement for contractual choice of law. The replacement was considered as a necessary step in the reform, and it was also deemed as an effort to align the U.C.C. with the established international commercial practices. Unfortunately, however, the attempt failed. …