Restatement of European Insurance Contracts Law III

The Project "Restatement of European Insurance Contract Law III" aims at completion, partial re-orientation as well as continuation of its preceding projects "Restatement I and II". Completion: The project Restatement II will end by 1 May 2006. By then the Project Group will have elaborated Principles of European Insurance Contract Law covering a general and a special part of Insurance Contract Law. However, the Project Group must fill still existing gaps and complete Comments and Notes. The existing Principles need revision concerning consistency and linguistic correctness. Thus, the project "Restatement III" will complete the preceding projects. Partial Re-Orientation: The urgent need for a completion of the projects "Restatement I and II" also follows from the attention of EC institutions which the work of the Project Group has gained. In its opinion on harmonization of European insurance contract law of 15 December 2004, the Economic and Social Commmittee has quite extensively described the work of the Project Goup and asked the EC Commission to consider legislation on the basis of its results. Since 1 May 2005 the Project Group works on a Common Frame of Reference of European insurance contract law on behalf of the EC Commission. The Common Frame of Reference must be finished by 2008. Moreover, the Project Group works on a draft for a European optional instrument in insurance law. These European developments reqire a partial re-orientation of the Principles of European Insurance Contract Law. The project "Restatement III" will fulfill this task. Continuation: The works of the Project Group will be continued upon completion of the Common Frame of Reference and the draft for an optional European Insurance Contract Law. The continued work will focus on specific branches of insurance, especially life assurance.

Over the past ten years and during the course of the projects funded by the FWF, the Project Group "Restatement of European Insurance Contract Law" has worked intensively on drafting Principles of European Insurance Contract Law (PEICL). The first part was published in 2009, submitted to the EU Commission as a Draft Common Frame of Reference on Insurance Contract Law in 2009 and presented to the public at the Group`s "PEICL: A Model Optional Instrument for the Single Market" Conference in January 2010, with the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Mrs Diana Wallis, among its speakers. The PEICL have transcended from being an academic exercise to being discussed publicly and politically as a real model for a European insurance contract law. Following its previous opinion on "The European Insurance Contract", the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), for whom the Chairman of the Project Group has acted as an expert, issued a further own-initiative opinion on the "28th Regime" of European Contract Law, in which an optional model based on Article 1:102 PEICL was favoured. This model was also followed in a Green Paper published by the European Commission on 1 July 2010 and more recently in the Proposal for a Common European Sales Law. In its Resolution of June 2011, the European Parliament advocated the adoption of the same model for insurance contract law. According to statements made by the European Commission, an Expert Group for the development of a legislative proposal for an EU regulation (Optional Instrument) on insurance contract law will be established by the end of 2012/beginning of 2013. The draft should be completed by the end of 2014 and the PEICL will form the basis of the legislative proposal. These developments in the political arena influence to a significant extent the future work of the Group. It will continue co-operating with the EU institutions and participating in further consultations concerning future legislation, especially promoting the adoption of the PEICL as an optional instrument. Finally, the PEICL may in future prove to be useful as model for other countries outside Europe. Following dissemination of the Group`s work, interest has, for example, already been shown by academics and organisations from various third countries, such as China, Japan, Korea and Turkey. Corresponding translations of the PEICL have already been published. This naturally raises the PEICL`s profile and can lead to valuable partnerships being formed.