Business and Contract Law: a Comparative Approach

Italian companies play a crucial role in international trade. Operating in the international context requires solid language skills, as well as a legal and cultural background, both essential to successfully face the challenges and opportunities of internationalisation.
This course aims to introduce students to the main legal issues concerning international contracts, and particularly sales contracts, examining both the formation and execution stages. These contracts will be analysed through the lens of the relevant sources of law, including national laws (explored in a comparative perspective), international conventions and the so-called soft law. Moreover, the course will investigate crucial topics such as the international transport of goods and the application of Incoterms, delving deeper into their legal and practical implications. Alternative dispute resolution methods will also be studied, including arbitration and mediation, with particular attention to dispute resolution instruments and mechanisms available internationally.
The course places a strong emphasis on the legal and cultural factors that have an impact on trade practices between countries, as regards both the formation of the contractual relationship (intercultural negotiation) and its termination (dispute management).

Students will acquire a sound knowledge of international trade law, becoming fully aware that any internationalisation scenario requires a combination of legal expertise and cultural and language skills. They will be able to identify the applicable law within the fragmentation of legal sources governing international trade, and to handle its complexities. Moreover, they will possess the necessary skills to communicate with both specialists and non-specialists involved in the legal aspects of business internationalisation. They will become familiar with the framework governing international sales contracts, international transport and Incoterms®, and international trade arbitration, thus learning to identify the most common legal issues relating to these areas, and to find possible solutions. Lastly, they will acquire the ability to further investigate related topics on their own.