Civil Law Experts Discussed Draft Model Law on Contract Law

On 10 March 2021, the meeting of the Expert Advisory Board at the IPA CIS Permanent Commission on Legal Issues took place in the Tavricheskiy Palace – the IPA CIS headquarters.

The meeting began with a minute of silence. The participants paid tribute to the memory of the former Prosecutor General of the USSR, honorary worker of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation Alexandr Sukharev, who passed away on 7 March at the age of 97.

The event focused on the draft Model Law on Contract Law (General Provisions), which is being developed by the commission. The document is intended to further detail the regulation of the basic issues of concluding contracts, outline the conditions for the validity of the contract and the grounds for its invalidity, the rules of the interpretation of the agreement, etc.

During the meeting, representative of the draft law developer, Professor at the Civil Law Department of St. Petersburg State University Anton Rudokvas emphasized that the provisions of the model Civil Code for the CIS Member Nations in the field of contract law need to be modernized.

Furthermore, the participants of the meeting analyzed the proposals and comments to the document. The Expert Advisory Board members paid special attention to the provisions concerning the relationship between the freedom to conclude a contract and pre-contractual liability; recognition of the validity of the offer and acceptance, as well as the procedure for their adoption, withdrawal or rejection; special consequences of the invalidity of contracts, etc. In general, the Expert Advisory Board members commended the quality of the presented Draft Law.

The meeting was also attended by Advisor to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Tatyana Vasilyeva, Director of the North-West Branch of the Russian State University of Justice, Deputy Chairperson of the Regional Branch of the All-Russian Public Organization Russian Association of Judges in St. Petersburg Yaroslav Zholobov, Vice-President of the Kutuzovskaya Bar Association Vahram Zakharyan, Associate Professor of the Department of General Theoretical Legal Disciplines of the North-Western Branch of the Russian State University of Justice Konstantin Shundikov, Deputy Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council – Plenipotentiary Representative of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Irina Sokolova, Deputy Head of the PA CSTO Secretariat, member of the Coordinating Council of the International Union of Lawyers Vladimir Bondurovsky.