International trade law

Force majeure is about impossibility, hardship about ruinous cost. Why monetary debts escape both, what sanctions do and do not extinguish, and what the clause must say.

The CISG applies unchosen, a French court applies the Hague Convention of 1955 and not Rome I, and the battle of the forms is decided by the last document sent.

The agent’s indemnity is mandatory, but two traps defeat most claims: the one-year notification running from the end of the notice period, and the foreign law clause.

The five banking day rule, what makes a refusal valid under Article 16 of UCP 600, when the bank is precluded and must pay, and what to do when the discrepancies are real.

Why a French law clause brings in the CISG rather than excluding it, what the Convention does and does not govern, and when exclusion is actually worth it.

Where risk passes under each of the eleven rules, why costs do not always follow, and the three choices that cost exporters the most: EXW, FOB on containers and DDP.

Which acquisitions require clearance from the French Minister for the Economy, which activities are sensitive, how long the review takes and what completing without it costs.

What Regulations 269/2014 and 833/2014 still allow, the no-re-export clause, Treasury authorisations, and what a company must be able to document afterwards.

How US sanctions reach a French company with no US presence, what the European blocking regulation and the French 1968 statute allow, and what to put in place first.

How jurisdiction and governing law clauses work under Brussels I bis and Rome I, what applies failing a clause, and when arbitration is worth more than a court.