The Contracts (Applicable Law) Act 1990 (Amendment) Order 1994

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order amends the Contracts (Applicable Law) Act 1990, in consequence of a revision of the Rome Convention of 1980 on the law applicable to contractual obligations. This revision was carried out in connection with the accession to the Convention of the Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese Republic. The effect of this Order will be to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the convention (the Funchal Convention) whereby those countries acceded to the Rome Convention.

The purpose of the Rome Convention is to harmonise the private international law rules of the Member States of the European Union on the law applicable to contracts. The United Kingdom signed it in 1981, enacted the Contracts (Applicable Law) Act in 1990, giving effect in United Kingdom Law to the Rome Convention (and also to the Luxembourg Convention of 1984 whereby Greece acceded to the Rome Convention), and ratified the Rome Convention in 1991. It came into force on 1st April 1991. The convention on the accession of the two remaining States, Spain and Portugal, was signed n Funchal on 18th May 1992. Article 5 of this Convention provides for its entry into force as between those States which have ratified it three months after ratification by Spain or Portugal and by one other Contracting State; thereafter it will come into force for other States on the first day of the third month after they ratify. It came into force on 1st March 1994 in relation to Spain, the Netherlands and Italy.

This Order makes minor amendments to the 1990 Act incorporating references to the Funchal Convention and adds a new Schedule to that Act containing the text of that Convention. Among the changes made by the Funchal Convention is the deletion of the provision in Article 27 of the Rome Convention on territorial extent. This Order gives effect to these changes by amending the text of the Rome Convention in Schedule 1 of the 1990 Act.