Tag Archive for: characterisation

Support in cross-border transactions by Adults: Contract law vs capacity law

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Thalia Kruger, University of Antwerp & Senior Research Associate, University of Johannesburg

This piece is based on a paper that I presented at the World Congress on Adults Protection, held in Amsterdam from 8 to 10 July 2026. It is still work in progress.

The World Conference focused on capacity rather than vulnerability and incapacity of Adults. This choice of theme resulted in much discussion on support for the exercise of capacity. Supported decision-making rather than replaced decision-making for an incapacitated person poses challenges for Private International Law, especially of the Von Savigny tradition. Our approach is to first characterise and then find which laws we can apply. But it is exactly this characterisation that is becoming blurry: to be fully in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities people should be allowed to make decisions, i.e. conclude contracts with the help of others. There should be no boxes of capacitated and incapacitated persons. No longer can only the former conclude contracts, while the latter have to be represented by guardians or other persons with a representation function. In Adult law some concepts are phasing out, while others are being reinterpreted by legislators and courts.

Below, after briefly explaining the move towards supported decision-making in substantive family law and human rights law, I turn to the available legal framework for cross-border cases, then to the difficult question of characterisation, and lastly to cross-border recognition.

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Report on the 2025 Journal of Equity Conference – Equity, Trusts and Private International Law

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On 21 August 2025, the UNSW School of Private and Commercial Law, the Journal of Equity and Allens jointly hosted the 2025 Journal of Equity Conference. This year’s one-day Conference focused on important questions at the intersection of equity, trusts and private international law. It featured four papers delivered by judges and scholars, each of which was followed by ample time for insightful questions and discussion among over 30 judges, lawyers and scholars attending the office of Allens in (rainy) Sydney.

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Report of the Oxford Conference on “Characterisation in the Conflict of Laws”

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The author of this report is Meltem Ece Oba (Koç University, Istanbul). The post is being published simultaneously on Conflictoflaws.net and on the EAPIL blog.

 

 On 20-21 March 2025, a conference on “Characterisation in the Conflict of Laws” was convened at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. Under the auspices of the Institute of European and Comparative Law in the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford, the conference was jointly organised by Dr Johannes Ungerer (University of Oxford and Notre Dame University in England), Dr Caterina Benini (Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan) and PD Dr Felix Berner (University of Tübingen). The conference brought together scholars and practitioners from several jurisdictions around the world.

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Conference on “Characterisation in the Conflict of Laws” at Oxford, 20–21 March 2025

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Information kindly provided by Johannes Ungerer

At the University of Oxford, a conference on ‘Characterisation in the Conflict of Laws’ will be held on 20 and 21 March 2025. It is jointly organised by Dr Johannes Ungerer (University of Oxford and University of Notre Dame in England), Dr Caterina Benini (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan), and PD Dr Felix Berner (University of Tübingen), and is funded by the Institute of European and Comparative Law and the Faculty of Law.

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Opinion of AG Saugmandsgaard Øe on characterisation of an action relating to abuse of dominant position brought between parties to a contract. Articles 7(1) and (2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation in the case C-59/19, Wikingerhof

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An action brought between parties to a contract in a scenario where the consent to at least some of the contractual terms was allegedly expressed by the plaintiff only on account of the dominant position of the defendant is to be considered as falling within the concept of ‘matters relating to contract’ [Article 7(1) of the Brussels I bis Regulation] or within the concept of ‘matters relating to delict or quasi-delict’ [Article 7(2) of the Regulation]?

In his Opinion delivered last Thursday, 10 September 2020, Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe addresses that question for the purposes of the reference for a preliminary ruling in the case C-59/19, Wikingerhof.

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