NATURALEZA DE LA RESPONSABILIDAD PRECONTRACTUAL (CULPA IN CONTRAHENDO) EN LA ARMONIZACIÓN JURÍDICA EUROPEA

Abstract

This article examines the nature of culpa in contrahendo with special attention to precontractual agreements. This is currently a controversial aspect in European countries in the scope of the European juridical harmonization. The modern legal focus in the European national Law is very different and there are relevant differences among those who consider culpa in contrahendo in the scope of Contracts and those who place it with crime or quasicrime or even those who consider it as tertium genus. Academic work for the harmonization of the European civil law, such as the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) or the Principies of European Contract Law (PECL) have adopted the principie of good faith applicable to precontractual negotiations and their consequences, but these pieces of work do not clarify the nature of this liability nor do they explicitly use the expression culpa in contrahendo. The European Regulation regarding the applicable law to non-contractual obligations (Rome II) reflects a specific norm about culpa in contrahendo. This liability is regarded as an autonomous concept thought of only for the European Law and, despite the fact that the rule of conflict applied to non-contractual obligations according to this regulation is the law of the place where the tort has been committed, the law that shall apply to the suppositions of culpa in contrahendo will be the contract law.