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Why would a contract for an international deal not be in English?
by Kiro 4y ago
Why would a contract for an international deal not be in English?
- rozenmd 4y agoBecause legally, the contract has to be in the jurisdiction's official language
- Xylakant 4y agoThat’s not true - you can have a contract in any language in Germany. But the first thing that a court adjucating any dispute would do is have a certified translator translate it into German - at your cost. And that translation will be out of your control. So it makes sense to have a German contract, so at least you know what the contract says going to court.
- Major_Grooves 4y agocorrect - all our actual investment documents are in English.
- rad_gruchalski 4y agoPlus, if during the certification of the translation it comes up that the document does not comply with the legal requirements, it may lead to a contract invalidation. It can be really expensive depending on the matter of the dispute.
- thomascarney 4y agoYou can choose both the law and forum in many types of commercial agreements. Typically international contracts will choose English law as the governing law.
- rad_gruchalski 4y agoIf your company has a legal representation in the English speaking country, sure, go for it.
- Kiro 4y agoObviously not true for many countries. In Sweden we often use English even for domestic contracts. I've seen employment agreements in English between a Swedish company and a Swedish employee.
- lozenge 4y agoBecause a dispute needs to be heard in a court, at which point precedent and/or statute need to be considered, and if the contract is in a different language to either of those two then interpreting all of them together becomes impossible.
- bloak 4y agoPresumably because the contracting parties want the contract to be interpreted and enforced by the courts of a country in which they both do business. It's not unusual, I think, for big international companies that already have assets and legal advisers in the UK to specify English law and English courts for a contract, but if a small Greek and a small Italian company were to have a contract in English, it would, I imagine, just make a legal dispute much more dififcult and expensive to resolve (whether or not the contract specifies English law and English courts: different problems in each case).