The enforcement of overriding mandatory provisions contained in directives of the European Union. The example of regulation in the food chain

Abstract

The increasing adoption of rules qualified as overriding mandatory provisions has led to a renewed interest in the methodology of private international law. Some of these rules are contained in European Directives, with the consequence that their application depends on national implementation rules, which sometimes conditions their effectiveness. With the aim of shedding some light on the debate about the scope to be given to overriding mandatory provisions and the logic of admitting that laws of national origin can be opposed to the laws of other Member States in a harmonised intra-European Union environment, this paper analyses some of the problems that arise in the implementation of Directive 2019/633, on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain, with special attention to the Spanish transposiction law (Law 16/2021).