In late Ottoman South-Eastern Europe, traditional Ottoman law, court systems and court personnel on the one hand, and ultra-modern French and German/Austrian law on the other, clashed. Thus, more than ever before, this region lay on the "tectonic boundary" of several legal continental shelves. This location makes South Eastern Europe a laboratory in which elements from different legal cultures coexist, mutually influence each other and merge with each other: A legal space characterised by plurality and hybridity, which due to these characteristics ultimately appears more modern than the - at least supposedly - homogeneous legal areas on the individual legal continental shelves.

? The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG This splendid book performs the heroic task of introducing readers to the large canvas of the commercial law of the European Union (EU). The EU began as an economic community of six nations but has grown into 27 member states, sharing a signi?cant political, social and legal cohesion and serving almost 500 million citizens. It generates approximately 30% of the nominal gross world product. The EU is a remarkable achievement of trans-national co-operation, given the history (including recent history) of national, racial, ethnic and religious hatred and con?ict preceding its creation. Although, as the book recounts, the institutions of the EU grew directly out of those of the European Economic Community, created in 1957 [1.20], the genesis of the EU can be traced to the sufferings of the Second World War and to the disclosure of the barbarous atrocities of the Holocaust. Out of the chaos and ruins of historical enmities and the shattered cities and peoples that survived those terrible events, arose an astonishing pan- European Movement.

Written by leading local attorneys, this concise report looks at and compares the legal aspects of setting up an enterprise in these seven rapidly emerging countries in South East Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia. Contributors include: Deloitte; Divjak, Topic & Bahijarevic; Kalo & Associates; Karanovic & Nikolic; Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen; Polenak Law Firm

The Law of Obligations in Central and Southeast Europe examines the new codifications, reforms, and other recent developments in Central and Southeast Europe which have significantly modernized the law of obligations in the last two decades, focusing particularly on the legal systems of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Turkey. With chapters authored by prominent academics and promising young legal scholars, this book discusses the results of the modernizations and describes the legislative reforms of the law of obligations that are underway or are discussed and advocated for in the countries of Central and Southeast Europe. Divergences of the new civil codes and other legislative acts from earlier legal solutions are identified and the rationale behind these departures is analysed, as well as the introduction of the new legal institutes in the law of obligations in these parts of the world. The Introduction provides a concise country-by-country overview of the recodification, modernization, and reform of the law of obligations in Central and Southeast Europe. In Part I, chapters discuss the process of recodification in the Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary, with focus on the main novelties in their contract and tort law. The chapters in Part II then discuss several, more specific legal institutes of the law of obligations, and other recent developments and contemporary challenges to the law of obligations in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Turkey. This book is of interest to legal scholars in the field of private law, as well as to students, practitioners, members of law reform bodies, and civil servants in Central and Southeast Europe, and beyond.

The book gives the basic legal facts for commercial dealing with Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the USSR and Bulgaria. It covers the following areas for each country: background information, commercial law and corporate law, joint ventures, privatisation, property, insurance, currency, customs regulations and taxation, intellectual property, anti- trust law, arbitration and foreign investment.