Civil law and commercial contracts
One of the most important tasks of our Office is to work out civil law contracts for our clients. We consider it our prime duty to make contracts on the basis of the agreements between the parties that regulate contractual rights and obligations and legal consequences of breaches of contract clearly and unambiguously, taking account of both parties’ interests, proportionately and thereby avoid later legal disputes.
We often experience that the parties did not lay stress on concluding the contract and later on they regretted it very much. Unsettled legal relations, bad contracts can be rather expensive in later legal disputes.
For clients who enter into contracts with similar content in large numbers, we propose and implement development of standard individual and, additionally, general terms and conditions tailored to their needs. By applying standard contracts and general terms and conditions administrative work can be significantly reduced, most of the procedure can be automated. Uniform regulation will be more easily attained also by the clients’ own staff members; so, errors, defects will occur less frequently.
We have significant experience with dealing with contracts used in international trade this provides us with strength in our knowledge of peculiarities arising from their international nature. Special attention is needed when contracting parties have different countries of residence. On occasion there will be times when certain contractual terms applied within Hungary will not be valid, for this the foreign party will use alternative sometimes foreign concepts instead of Hungarian legal concepts, and that enforcement of arising claims will be completed under the foreign legal system of another country.
For the very reason that conflicts might evolve due to the above-mentioned problems, it is especially important that international commercial contracts should be worked out by experts, and the parties should not use contractual formulas used in domestic trade.
In addition to the provisions of an agreement, the applicable law is also important for international contracts. In case of a legal dispute, first, the court will examine the law of which state shall be applied; then, it will examine if the contract is valid in accordance with the applicable law, and only after that will it decide the legal dispute on the merits.
The parties have the option to stipulate under the contract the exclusive jurisdiction of a court to decide legal disputes that might arise; however, it is also possible to stipulate the competence of a board of arbitration.
For conclusion of international contracts it is advantageous to stipulate a board of arbitration, as this way it is possible to appoint experts to be arbitrators in the legal dispute having arisen who know the applicable law, and the parties can agree in what language is to be applied in the procedure.
We can help you to conclude a contract with your local or foreign business partners to enable you to choose the most advantageous solution and to be fully aware of your obligations.
Be careful in preparing your contracts and ask for an expert’s help.
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