Exploring the Uncommon Core: Comparative Analysis of Surety Agreements across Europe

Abstract

This Article analyses the treatment of suretyship agreements across the EU in the context provided by (1) the extent to which they reveal a 'common core' of EC private law; (2) the policy proposition that to stem legal fragmentation le-gal homogeneity and the assimilation of legal traditions is inevitable; (3) whether the goal of creating a single market in financial services requires a regulatory response whether measures of sector specific EC legislation, maxi-mum harmonisation directives or broader codification. Predictably, given their polycontextural function, we are confronted with starkly divergent national approaches towards such agreements. Adapting Teubner on the hybridisation of contract, the paper proceeds to consider how we may see elements of commonality arising through the tension between differing legal traditions and divergent national approaches. The paper argues that Europe is becoming ever more a mixed jurisdiction, finishing with a prediction of the relevance of a strategy involving both measures of sector-specific harmonisation and a programme of non-legislative harmonisation through judicial convergence.