Distance sellers fear Rome II law

By Aoife White

Date: 30/06/05

Online and mail-order firms are warning that they could face significant barriers to doing business across borders if the European Parliament votes for a new draft law on 7 July - a view the report's author firmly rejects.

They are claiming that the Parliament's proposed amendments to the Rome II regulation could harm the growth of e-commerce and distant selling across Europe because it will force them to check that they are in compliance with rules in all 25 member states.

Rome II is designed to harmonise rules on non-contractual obligations where there is a conflict of national law.

But critics fear that MEPs could crush the country-of-origin principle in Article 23 which granted legal certainty by guaranteeing firms they could do business across borders as long as they met requirements in their home country.

Will Roebuck, co-founder of the UK's E-Business Regulatory Alliance said firms would limit their potential liability by turning down sales to foreign customers.

Online retailer Amazon questioned the benefits of a Rome II "which ran the risk of undermining the very legal certainty only recently achieved by the EU's e-commerce directive".

Axel Tandberg, government affairs director for the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA) echoed the concerns.

But the author of the Parliament's report, British Liberal MEP Diana Wallis, said: "It will not open up companies to any new liabilities.

"Ardent champions of the country of origin principle...think it should apply to absolutely everything."

Publishers and journalists have agreed a compromise amendment with Wallis, settling a dispute on how the regulation should deal with defamation.

Article reports on concerns of online and mail-order firms that the European Parliament's proposed amendments to the Rome II regulation could harm the growth of e-commerce and distant selling across Europe because it would force them to check that they are in compliance with rules in all 25 member states.

PreLex: COM(2003) 427, Proposal for a Regulation on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (ROME II) http://ec.europa.eu/prelex/detail_dossier_real.cfm?CL=en&DosId=184392

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