Ellen Eftestøl-Wilhelmsson | OST Colloquium: Intermediaries in Shipping

The aim of this Article is to present recent developments in European Union (EU) agency law concerning the applicability and mandatory scope of the Directive on the Coordination of the Laws of the Member States Relating to Self-Employed Commercial Agents (Directive). The Directive is of interest for several reasons. It represents one of the few areas of contract law in the EU, outside the field of consumer law, that involves harmonized “hard” law, rather than “soft” law. The substance of the Directive is also interesting because it harmonizes rules in an area where a wide gap has existed, and indeed still exists, between the common law and continental perspectives.