The Italian Bar (Consiglio Nazionale Forense) and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) are jointly organising a conference in Rome on 11 April 2012 on “The proposed Common European Sales Law – the lawyers’ view”. 

The European Commission’s proposal for a Common European Sales Law (CESL), published in October 2011, has raised divergent reactions from various parties regarding, among others, the legal basis chosen by the Commission and the relationship of the proposal with Art. 6 of the Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations (“Rome I”). 

The European Commission has made available to the public this week, on the European e-Justice portal, national factsheets on the rights of defendants in all 27 Member States of the EU. These factsheets were prepared by the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) working together with experienced criminal defence lawyers, the CCBE's member Bars, Ministries of Justice and qualified legal translators. They list in a simple but comprehensive way the rights available to defendants in criminal proceedings in all the EU Member States. They are available in all of the EU’s official languages. 

The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) and the American Bar Association (ABA) have written to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to express their growing concern about the independence of the legal profession in a number of European countries.   It is indeed a disturbing trend in places like Greece, Ireland and Portugal where the economic crisis and the intervention of the Troika have led Governments to propose radical reforms of the legal profession. 

The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), in the light of the discussions which are taking place at the EU Council concerning the proposal for the European Union Patent Court and the Unitary Patent, is concerned that the proposed system in the current Draft Agreement on a Unified Patent Court will not meet the goals of being accessible and affordable, especially for SMEs, nor meet basic requirements of legal certainty. The CCBE position paper outlining these grounds in greater detail can be found here.