Conclusion

Abstract

The prospective new ‘Optional Instrument’ incorporating transnational European contract law seems to answer old postulations in continental legal scholarship to join commercial law with general civil law. This superficial impression is soon dispersed, however, upon a closer look at the new instrument. Not only does the commercial law or the law merchant as it is understood and codified in many continental legal systems comprise much more than a few special contractual rules which could easily be integrated into the law of obligations, but it is also clear from the records of the drafting process that responding to the needs of trade was not the main focus of the drafters but the starting point and original mission was rather the consolidation of the ‘consumer acquis’.