International contract law

Introduction:

Companies are likely tended to deal with different parties (consumers, suppliers etc). Therefor, legal acts need to be settled by the companies in order to produce legal effect. The contract is a legal act formed by the parties and once the contract is settled, the parties are committed to each other. According to the Dahir of the obligations and contracts code 1913: « the obligation is a legal relationship under which a party, the debtor, is engaged to execute his obligation for the benefit of another person, the creditor”.

In this modern world, companies must extend their businesses all over the world to develop their activities. In order to do that, firms will conclude international contract with parties coming from the entire world. An international contract involves at least 2 different countries.

When parties are contracting, they are free to choose every characteristic of the contract such as, the obligations, the responsibility, the applicable law, the competent judge and so on. That is the reason why contracts are considered as the better tool for trades. This principle is called the party autonomy. In other words, it is not the law that rules the contract, but the will of the parties who chose to contract with each other.

In case of dispute, things may get complicated because of the diversity of all the legislations when it comes to the applicable law to the contract, the competent judge or to public order of each country involved.

In this essay, we shall understand how international contracts are treated in Morocco.

In Morocco, after the protectorate, in 1913, the DOC (Dahir of obligations and contracts) has been adopted, which regulate all the contractual relations. Here, the drafters wanted to conciliates European legislation with the Muslim religion. The Commerce code also regulates contracts. Those both code are based on the same principle: party autonomy, which I mentioned before, meaning that there is a freedom of choice.

It is important to mention that there is a convention called the Rome I Convention, which regulate international contract since 2008. But, Morocco didn’t sign up for this convention, therefore, in case of dispute, this convention will not be applicable. In morocco, we shall then refer to the international private law or the domestic law if the international private law says so.

In Morocco, private international law is regulated by the DCC (Dahir of the civil situation of foreigners) 1959 and the CPC 1974 (Code de procedure civile). However, the DCC presents some lacuna in some area such as maternity, adoption and donation.

Each country has its own approach to international contracts. The main issues in international contracts are the conflict of jurisdiction and what law will be applicable to the contract. Even if it chosen by the parties while contracting, it may sometimes, change because of a national approach.

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HEJAJ Zineb Master 1 International Business Law

I. Conflict of jurisdiction

Normally, in an international contract, the party will designed expressly the competent jurisdiction in case of dispute with a jurisdiction clause. Before searching for the applicable law, the first step for a judge is to determine whether or not he is competent in this situation.

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