Commercial Agents, the Directive and European Private International Law

The protection of commercial agents under Directive 86/653 in international cases raises questions of private international law. Here, several different fact situations are analysed: In, first, the normal single market case where commercial agent and principal both are active in Member States, Article 3 (4) Reg. Rome I assures protection of the commercial agent even where the law of a third country has been chosen by the parties. Where, second, the principal is from a third state but the commercial agent is active in the single market, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Ingmar has ruled that the protection according to the Directive applies. Its rules then should be considered as overriding mandatory provisions in the sense of Article 9 Reg. Rome I. Where, third, the protection provided for by the Directive has in Member State law been extended to commercial agents not covered by the Directive, this extended protection according to the UNAMAR judgment of the ECJ may under certain conditions override even the law of another Member State – and the Belgian Court of Cassation has actually decided in this sense. In the specific case, though, the result is odd and apparently helped to oust an arbitration clause. Fourthly, in case of an extra-EU commercial agent and an EU-principal, according to the ECJ case Agro the protection foreseen by the Directive need not necessarily be granted to the foreign commercial agent by the applicable Member State law. This, according to the ECJ, even is the case where the EU-provisions have been transplanted into the legal system of the third state where the commercial agent is active. It is shown that this is very questionable and that the third state rule can – similarly to Ingmar – be an overriding mandatory provision. The restrictive Article 9 (3) Reg. Rome I here poses some problems, which, however, can be overcome. The Belgian Enterprise Court in Ghent in fact used Article 7 Rome Convention