The Standardisation of the Leasing Contract Under Italian Law and the Unidroit Principles

Abstract

Despite its financial nature, for over forty years, Italian case law has classified the financial leasing contract as an atypical contractual form, often qualifying it as a sale or rental agreement. In this respect, various indexes were formulated, such as the amount of the rental fees and the existence of a redemption agreement. In August 2017, the Italian legislator sought to standardise the leasing contract under the law, attempting to define its contractual form and to regulate certain aspects, such as the lessee’s breach and possible consequences deriving from its termination. The comparison between the approach taken by case law prior to the legislative reform and the new regulatory framework shows that the legislator did not transpose the long-established jurisprudential outcomes into the reform. Instead, through comparing the legal reform with the UNIDROIT Principles (The Ottawa Convention and the Model Law), it would appear that the new legal framework closely resembles the solutions adopted therein. Conversely, it is clear that the legal reform does not incorporate the rules adopted by the Draft Common Frame of Reference.