THE FUTURE IMPACT OF THE ROME CONVENTION ON HUNGARIAN CONFLICT RULES
THE FUTURE IMPACT OF THE ROME CONVENTION ON HUNGARIAN CONFLICT RULES

Summary/Abstract: The article compares the current Hungarian private international law regime to that of the Rome Convention of the EC. While the Convention is before changing into an anticipated Regulation, it makes sense to test Hungarian PIL provisions against the Convention because to a certain extent the Regulation is likely to build upon the regime of the Convention. The paper discusses the different provisions from party choice of law to connecting factors in the absence of choice, from consumer and individual employment contracts to the Convention's Article 7 mandatory rules, from the law appicable to formal validity to renvoi, and concludes that while Hungary's PIL system is something very close to the Convention, several changes – some minor some more substantial – will be introduced into Hungarian law upon the passing of the Regulation. The paper also evaluates the impact the Convention has had on Hungarian PIL so far and assesses whether or not formal modification of the Hungarian law on PIL will be needed. At the time of drawing up this present study the 1980 Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations is under transformation into an instrument of secondary EC legislation – a'la the transformation of the 1968 Brussels Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgements in civil and commercial matters into Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001. There have been quite many different suggestions as to the new rules of the common European private international law (PIL) in the anticipated Rome Regulation and thus the exact direction of the changes is unpredictable at this point of time. However, since the much anticipated Regulation is very likely to adapt the PIL system of the Convention at least to some extent, it does make sense to sum up the main differences between the existing regime and practice of the Rome Convention and Hungarian PIL in its black letter law, case law and legal writings.

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