Italian National Report on the Use of the UPICC in Order to Interpret or Supplement National Contract Law

The contribution is an updated version of the Italian National Report presented at the XX Congress of the AIDC (Fukuoka, Japan, 2018). The authors point out that while there is no legislative provision mandating the use of instruments such as the UPICC to interpret or supplement national contract law in the Italian legal system, Italian courts have resorted to the UPICC for said purposes. The authors add that the use of the UPICC by Italian courts had mainly the aim of favoring the adoption of one of several possible solutions under the applicable domestic law or filling in a veritable gap. For said purpose, the authors provide an analysis of several Court decisions that used the UPICC, updading the analysis in respect to the previous Report. Following, the authors compare the UPICC with Italian law, concluding that almost all selected provisions of the UPICC do have a counterpart in Italian law and highlighting convergences and divergences.