The article looks at Article 9(3) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I). Article 9(3) is concerned with the application of overriding (or internationally) mandatory rules of a third country; a question considered so controversial that the possibility to enter a reservation against the corresponding Article 7(1) was included in the forerunner to Rome I, the Rome Convention.
The first part of the article contains a historical background including the details of negotiations in the Council when the Rome Convention was transformed into the Rome I Regulation and the rule was re-drafted. The second part of the article contains an in-depth analysis of Article 9(3) and looks at the question of whether the changes made in order to make it acceptable to those states that had entered a reservation against its predecessor, Article 7(1) of the Rome Convention, will actually have any practical importance or whether they were mainly for show.