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Pierre Schammo
Common Market Law Review
Volume 55, Issue 5 (2018) pp. 1423 – 1455
https://doi.org/10.54648/cola2018118
Abstract
This article takes stock of one of the major innovations under the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS): the breach of Union law procedure. Under this procedure, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) have a key role to play in policing breaches of Union law, but they have rarely taken formal action. Many decisions are decisions not to act, i.e. declining to open investigations following a request by a complainant. Some of these “inactions” have been scrutinized before the Joint Board of Appeal of the ESAs (BoA). One was appealed before the EU judiciary, which denied “ordinary” complainants procedural safeguards, including rights of appeal before the BoA and the EU courts. This article seeks to shed light on the ESAs’ decisions not to act under the breach of Union law procedure, focusing on the ESAs’ very substantial discretionary right not to initiate an investigation, and suggesting that the procedural position of some ordinary complainants should be revisited.
Extract
Abstract: The computer language (computer code) on the basis of which smart contracts are written is different from the natural (Human) language. Computer language is a ‘dry’ language, whereas natural language is ‘wet’. In other words, it means that computer language is deterministic (just one meaning and one result are conceivable), when natural language is open to more and potential different meanings. Natural language requires therefore in itself interpretation, at least more than computer language. Computer language in theory doesn’t require and possibly doesn’t leave room for interpretation. If this assumption is accurate, what are the consequences of it (on the intention of the parties, on contract drafting, on courts’ intervention…)? Building on that assumption, this article explores, from a comparative perspective, the impact of the blockchain-based smart contract technology, especially regarding contract drafting techniques. Contract drafting style in common law (long contracts, based on a ‘if …, then ….’ approach, quite similar to the coding approach) is in part based on the idea of preventing courts’ interpretation and intervention. In civil law countries instead, contracts are generally shorter, for several reasons but partly because drafters tend to rely on more general legal concepts, external to the contract, and know that courts will play an important role, through interpretation, in disclosing the ‘true meaning’ of a contract. Coding contracts and relying on computer-code language can hence have a significant impact on the civil law approach and bring the two legal systems closer as far as contract drafting and contract interpretation are concerned.
European Review of Private Law