Author examines which concept of determining of the law applicable should be considered as optimum for the community legal order. The achievements of the community private international law with regard to the substantive and to the procedural law were taken into account as well as the level of approximation of laws of Member States already reached. Author came to the conclusion that the above mentioned achievements and the reached level of approximation speaks for the concept of joining the choice of substantive rules with the rules of the international procedural law. However even such wide concept is for him insufficient as it does not take into account specifics of the internal markets. The last requires specific methods of determining of the applicability of the legal rules. Among them the leading place takes mutual recognition and equivalence of legal rules of the Member States in accordance with the Country‑of‑Origin Principle of goods and services. The article, apart from introduction and remarks conceived as material for discussion, presents a) criterions of consideration of given concept as optimum for the community law, b) the connection of the choice of law rules and of the international procedural law as already existing in the community law, c) the need of existence a construction being equivalent to the choice of law rules. This is considered by the author as significance of the Country‑of‑Origin Principle within the concept of mutual recognition and equivalence of substantive rules of the Member States.

The article is a critical evaluation of the implementation of the Hague Programme (2005—2010) in the field of civil law. While almost all instruments that Programme had provided for have been adopted (and accompanied by the strengthening of operational structures like European Judicial Network or e-justice tools) the shortcomings have become more visible. The inconsistency of instruments is one of them. The
growing importance of the external dimension of the JHA policy has been described in detail in this article.

The public policy is the commonly recognized reason for which the recognition or enforcement of an arbitral award may be refused. This exception is acknowledged under the New York Convention and it has also been incorporated in the Polish Arbitration Law of 2005. The article examines the public policy exception in the international commercial arbitration, as it is understood in the legal doctrine and applied by the courts around the world. The general conclusion is drawn that courts in the major jurisdictions almost unanimously faithfully apply the policy favoring enforcement and rarely refuse the recognition of the arbitral awards because of the ordre public. The article then examines the public policy exception under the Polish law with a particular emphasis on its practical application by the courts. Under the formula established in the Polish case law, the public policy is violated if the arbitral awards infringes the public order as such, that is the main principles of the organization of the state or the socio‑economic principles prevailing in Poland, defined primary in the Constitution, or the fundamental principles of the various fields of law. An observation is made that when looking at the surface, the Polish courts tend to carefully use the public policy, recognizing its exceptional and narrow character. Nevertheless, the closer look at some of the judgments show that Polish judges have a difficulty in grasping the divergence between the prohibition to go beyond the merits of the case (no revision au fond) and the permitted scope of review when searching for the violations of the public policy.

As of December 17th, 2009, the new conflict‑of‑law rule on voluntary assignment of claims provided in article 14 of Rome I Regulation is applicable. The article attempts to provide an interpretation of the newly introduced rule. Reference is made to article 12 of the Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations, which served as a basis for the new regulation. The focus is kept on the proprietary aspects of the assignment, the principal question being whether and to what extent they have been regulated in the new solution. For that purpose the legislative process, which led to its endorsement, is discussed. Additionally, a brief summary of the current most significant proposals of relevant conflict‑of‑law solutions raised in the doctrine and jurisprudence is made, whereas the substantive law rationale behind each of them is considered.

The International Law Association conference held in New Delhi between 2nd and 6th April 2002 has adopted the Resolution and Recommendations relating to the public policy as a ground for refusing the recognition or enforcement of arbitral awards. The Recommendations were prepared by the group of experts led by P. Mayer, A. Sheppard and N. Nassar. The Recommendations aim at balancing between the two important values, the policy favoring the recognition of the arbitral awards on one hand and safeguarding the most fundamental principles of the recognition state’s legal system on the other. Taking into account the high reputation of the ILA and the authors of the Recommendations, they should be taken as an important guidance for the courts as to the application of the public policy exception.

This article analyzes the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 6 October 2009 in Case C-133/08, concerning the interpretation of the Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations (Rome Convention of 1980), particularly its Article 4 on the applicable law in the absence of choice by the parties and the possibility of dépeçage of the contract. The case involved a dispute between the Belgian company ICF and two Dutch companies regarding payment for a transport service under a charter party. Key issues included the classification of a charter party as a contract for the carriage of goods, the application of legal presumptions under Article 4 of the Convention and the conditions for departing from them, as well as the possibility of applying different laws to different parts of the contract. The Court clarified that Article 4(4) applies to charter parties whose main object is the actual carriage of goods, and dépeçage is possible exceptionally when a part of the contract is autonomous.

As corretly underlined in the decision of the European Court of Justice of 6th October 2009, C‑133/
08 the split of the contractual status definited in the article 4 sec. 1 sentence 2 of the Rome Convention may happen only exceptionally and only in the situation when the part of the contract can be treated as autonomous to the other part of the contract. The author notices that the role of the phrase part of the contract provided in the article 4 sec. 1 sentence 2 and article 3 sec. 1 sentence 3 of the Convention is different. It is confirmed by the context of the phrases. In the first of the abovementioned rule the phrase is associated by the phrase exceptionally. The second of the abovementioned rule concerns the matter of the admissibility of the split of the contract. According to the article 3 sec. 1 sentence 3 the parties are allowed more, than can do the judge who applies article 4 sec. 1 sentence 2 of the Convention. The author inclines to the opinion of the Tribunal that the court during the process of finding the applicable law should always try to rely on the presumptions provided by article 4 sec. 2—4 of the Convention. Nevertheless, when the contract demonstrates the more closest connection with the other country than the country determined by the presumtion, the court according to the article 4 sec. 5 sentence 2 may apply the law of that other country. It was positively appreciated the interpretation of the article 4 sec. 4 which allows to the apllication of the rule to the charter contract. It was found as too far‑reaching the thesis no 2 of the decision which provides that during the process of searching the applicable law for the autonomous part of the contract it should be always applied the article 4 sec. 1 sentence 2 of the Convention. In the opinion of the author autonomous part of the contract can have the properties which would justify the application of one of the presumption from article 4 sec. 2—4 of the Convention. Finally, during the process of searching the law applicable for the transport contract, when the prerequisites of the presumptions from article 4 sec. 4 sentence 2 are not fulfilled — the article 4 sec. 2 of the convention should be applied.

Commentary refers to the judgment given in the case of authorizing the enforcement in Poland the decision of the French court. This paper especially aims at analyzing the transitional provisions contained in Art 54 of the Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, done at Lugano on 16.09.1988 and in Art 66 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001 of 22.12.2000 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. The need to discuss these problems results from the fact that transitional provisions of the Lugano Convention and of Brussels I Regulation on enforcement of court judgments provoke in practice many interpretation doubts. Finally this commentary refers to the legal character of procedure before the court of 2nd instance, especially to the term “procedure in contradictory matters (Art 43(3) Council Regulation Brussels I and Art 37(1), Art 40(2) Lugano Convention).