Commercial Law is a specific sector of Private Law and regulates commerce. It is further divided into National and International Commercial Law while these two sectors are interrelated. It is inclusive of the legislative framework regarding commercial actions and merchants. In the meanwhile, it consists of a framework of rules and principles which regulates all the legal aspects of commercial affairs and trades.
Commercial Law aims at the development of commerce and protection of merchants and their contracting parties. In a nutshell, commerce is the consortium of procedures that participate in the plunging speculative mediation regarding the circulation of the so-called financial goods and aims at financial profit. Furthermore, merchant is the person that extends himself in trading activities and operates in trade, always according to the provisions of the Greek Commercial Code.
Commercial Law deals also with issues of industrial property rights, competition, commercial companies, bankruptcy, negotiable instruments, stock-market, banks, commercial contracts etc. In particular, commercial law is divided into several sectors:
- Law of commercial affairs and merchants, known as general part
- Company Law
- Law of negotiable instruments
- Law of Bankruptcy and Law of corporate restructure
- Insurance law
- Law of commercial contacts with no legislative autonomy
- Maritime Law
- Law of Transports
Commercial law consists of common law rules and its sources are law, commercial custom, international contracts and commercial usage (moral conventions). In addition, there are certain specifications that establish commercial law as a specific sector of Private Law such as its facultative provisions, the increased protection of the third party, the non-causative of the obligations resulting from commercial transactions and the collective satisfaction of creditors in case of commercial insolvency.
However, nowadays, there is a tendency for international uniformity through the adoption of common conventional frameworks or clauses that result in convergence of the current law regimes in the same type of transactions.
The hiring of lawyers in commercial transactions is also very common and useful not only for the protection of the contracting parties but also for the general protection of transactions.
The “precautionary” involvement of the lawyer in transactions is definitely more efficient than his involvement in disagreements and other problems.
The lawyer’s part in commercial relations is not only to “closely” protect his client’s best interest but also to reassure that the commercial transaction will be fair and not vague.
This way, the possibility of damaging results for each of the contracting parties and consequently, litigation, is limited.
Lawyers dealing with commercial issues are required to have the ability to put themselves into the merchant’s/entrepreneur’s position and to look beyond the narrow “legal” interest of their clients, for their commercial interest.