REFORMING THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS AND COMPANY LAW - RÉFORMER LE DROIT DES OBLIGATIONS ET LE DROIT DES SOCIÉTÉS
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REFORMING THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS
AND COMPANY LAW
STUDIES IN FRENCH AND GERMAN LAW
RÉFORMER LE DROIT DES OBLIGATIONS
ET LE DROIT DES SOCIÉTÉS
ÉTUDES DE DROIT FRANÇAIS ET ALLEMANDCOLLECTION TRANS EUROPE EXPERTS
VOLUME 8
REFORMING THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS
AND COMPANY LAW
STUDIES IN FRENCH AND GERMAN LAW
RÉFORMER LE DROIT DES OBLIGATIONS
ET LE DROIT DES SOCIÉTÉS
ÉTUDES DE DROIT FRANÇAIS ET ALLEMAND
Edited by / Sous la direction de
Walter DORALT and / et Olivier DESHAYES
Société de législation comparée
28 rue Saint Guillaume, 75007 Paris, France
Tél : (33) 1 44 39 86 23
Fax : (33) 1 44 39 86 28
e-mail : slc@legiscompare.com
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© Société de législation comparée – 2013
I.S.B.N. 978-2-36517-021-5 I.S.S.N. 2110-0489Table of Contents / Table des matières
Foreword
Walter DORALT and Olivier DESHAYES 7
I
LAW OF OBLIGATIONS
LE DROIT DES OBLIGATIONS
A. Reforming the Law of Obligations
La réforme du droit des obligations
The Reform of the Law of Obligations in France. Methods and
Prospects
Guillaume MEUNIER 15
Réforme du droit des contrats : l’expérience allemande
Reinhard ZIMMERMANN 25
B. Specific Issues of the Law of Obligations
Questions choisies de droit des obligations
Breach of Contract and Abusive Behavior
La rupture abusive des contrats
La rupture abusive
Carole AUBERT de VINCELLES 49
Rupture abusive. A Few Comparative Remarks
Philipp EICHENHOFER 63
Adaptation of Long Term Contracts
L’adaptation des contrats de longue durée
Contrat Law: Adapting Long Term Contracts. Flexibility and
Adaptation Mechanisms Employed by Contracting Parties
Martine BEHAR-TOUCHAIS 696 REFORMING THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS AND COMPANY LAW
II
COMPANY LAW
LE DROIT DES SOCIÉTÉS
A. Reforming Company Law
La réforme du droit des sociétés
Key Trends in French Company Law Reforms over the Last Decade
Dorothée GALLOIS-COCHET and Marie CAFFIN-MOI 91
Comparative Remarks from a German Point of View
Observations comparatives inspirées du droit allemand
Legal Capital. Modernising the German GmbH
Rainer KULMS 109
The Growing Importance of Corporate Governance and Capital
Markets Law in Germany
Rüdiger VEIL 113
Regulating Directors’ Duties, their Enforcement and the Business
Judgment Rule
Walter DORALT 119
B. Regulatory Competition in Company Law
and Corporate Insolvency Law
La concurrence normative en droit des sociétés
et des entreprises en difficulté
Company Mobility and Regulatory Competition in the European
Union and under French Company Law
Andra COTIGA 127
Concurrence normative et redressement d’entreprise. L’étude du
cas Rodenstock
Felix STEFFEK 145FOREWORD
Walter DORALT and Olivier DESHAYES
It is a privilege to introduce this book. Moreover, it is for us an
undeserved privilege, as our role has merely been to organise a conference
in Hamburg as part of our work within a pre-existing international research
group, directed by Professor Judith Rochfeld.
But above all it is a pleasure to see the papers presented in this
conference being published and thus shared with a wider audience in this
bilingual volume of the Société de Législation Comparée (SLC).
It seems to us that the pre-existing international research group alluded
to above requires a brief introduction and explanation. A few years back, in
2009, five French colleagues had founded Trans-Europe Experts (TEE), a
European network of law experts based in Paris. This step was motivated by
a number of factors, amongst which was the observation that the landscape
of law and law-making in Europe had undergone a gradual change.
Normative developments seemed to take a different path from what
experience might have suggested. An appreciation of the ever-increasing
amount of legislation along with the time pressure with which it was (and is)
often prepared also prompted the formation of the network, as did the
recurring observation that sound comparative groundwork was missing. As
co-Presidents of TEE, Professors Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson and Judith
Rochfeld thought it necessary correct these shortcomings and, with the
support of TEE, gathered a group of other European legal research
Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private
Law, Hamburg.
Professeur de droit privé, directeur du LEJEP (Laboratoire d’études juridiques et politiques
de l’Université de Cergy-Pontoise, EA-4458), secrétaire général adjoint de TEE (Trans Europe
Experts) : olivier.deshayes@u-cergy.fr8 REFORMING THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS AND COMPANY LAW
institutions to team up and cooperate as a Groupe de Recherche Européen
(GDRE). Its purpose is to strengthen links between the research institutions
involved, based in France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg, and to
collectively address the challenges mentioned above. This initiative has
received the generous support of the French Centre National de Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS), making this work possible.
As for the substance, the GDRE aims at producing academic research
and guidance for law and law-making in the wider context of the new
normative environment in the European Union. The topics dealt with are
European by nature, including important national developments. As a
general theme, the GDRE addresses the new normative developments in
Europe (Nouvelles normativités en Europe). As a part of this ambitious
endeavour, a first and perhaps more modest step is to develop a better
understanding of the differences shaping European national jurisdictions
today. Thus, the GDRE intends to provide a forum in which researchers
from different backgrounds may exchange ideas and can learn from each
other in meetings and conferences, such as the conference held in Hamburg.
More specifically, during its first year (2011) the group focused on “optional
instruments”, having organised a conference in Paris in November 2011
dealing with the proposal of a European regulation on a Common European
Sales Law (CESL). The editors of this book were present and still recall the
lively exchange of ideas on that occasion. The contributions were then also
published in a 2012 volume of the SLC series, along with a comparative
annex featuring the texts of the draft CESL, its predecessors and texts with
which a comparison of the draft seemed useful.1 A second conference was
held in March 2012 in Paris, this time on the broader topic of optional
instruments in different areas of the law, held in connection with TEE’s
annual meeting. The research directed by Professors Bénédicte Fauvarque-
Cosson and Martine Béhar-Touchais on the implementation of optional
instruments in European private law was presented on this occasion.2
The contributions gathered in this book were presented on November
1st and 2nd, 2012 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and
International Private Law in Hamburg during the third meeting of the GDRE.
They relate to French and German legal reforms in the field of the law of
obligations, company law and corporate insolvency law. More widely, all
the topics dealt with in this book can be seen in the context of the changing
1
O. DESHAYES (ed.), Le droit commun européen de la vente, examen de la proposition de
règlement du 11 octobre 2011 (avec une table de concordance des textes), coll. « Trans Europe
Expert », vol. 6, Paris, Société de législation comparée, 2012.
2
B. FAUVARQUE-COSSON and M. BEHAR-TOUCHAIS, Mise en œuvre des instruments
optionnels européens en droit privé, coll. « Trans Europe Expert », vol. 5, Paris, Société de
législation comparée, 2012.W. DORALT & O. DESHAYES : FOREWORD 9
landscape of law in the EU and against the background of comparative law
and regulatory competition. National jurisdictions have been and are
reacting to the changing normative environment in Europe and, as such,
national reforms are often also a reaction to international trends or
developments. The concepts advanced in these reforms are frequently
motivated by a desire to provide a blue print or model for European reforms,
be it in the context of the law of obligations, in company law or corporate
insolvency law. This book by no means intends to give a broad overview of
the topics mentioned above, let alone a comprehensive one, but rather wants
to give an impression of certain aspects of reforms in Germany and France
in a comparative perspective. It therefore hopes to contribute to a better
mutual understanding.
The contributions have been authored partially in English, partially in
French. We hope that our readers will not find this to be too much of an
obstacle. The choice of language for each contribution and the lack of
uniformity may seem unusual at first sight, but it is not arbitrary: Some of
the French contributions are written in English in order to allow for easier
access and a wider readership among foreign readers, this occurring where
seen as desirable by the editors. On the other hand, some of the
contributions written by German authors are here published in French,
because the insights presented in these papers seemed particularly
interesting for readers in France. In this context, the editors are very grateful
to Chloé Lignier for her linguistic support and for the translation of
contributions into French, as they are to Michael Friedman for his support in
brushing up the papers written in English.
We hope this book will stand as a modest but useful contribution for
readers interested in French and German law in a comparative perspective.
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