Rules on interpretation of contracts have been amended by the recent French reform of contract law. These new rules have resulted in enhanced similarities between French law on interpretation of contract and an existing common base of interpretation rules reflected in other States’ legal systems and in various instruments of uniformization of contract law, such as the UNIDROIT Principles and the Principles of European Contract Law.
Shall these revised rules be necessarily applied by arbitrators when the contract is governed by French law, while the hierarchy amongst these rules and the imperative nature of some of them remain to be clarified ? Generally speaking, is the arbitrator bound by the applicable rules of interpretation of contract, as the judicial judge would be, or shall the arbitrator be inclined to, or even obliged to, adopt a specific approach to the interpretation of contracts where the common intent of the parties would prevail over every other rules due to the consensual nature of his mandate? This article brings some answers to these questions.
Revue de l’arbitrage