The ambition of the colloquium is to bring together some prominent figures in the fields of European private law as well as younger researchers, who may share the interest in a genuine and open-minded discussion on some of the most challenging topics of common interest to private and commercial law academics. The idea is, inter alia, to foster future research connections among scholars from different countries and with different viewpoints.

The emphasis of the colloquium is on the need to re-examine and reassess the borders of private law, with a focus on the the traditional distinction between civil law stricto sensu and commercial law., which the 1942 Italian codice civile was first to abandon (book V of the code encompasses company law, labour law and parts of what we call today competition law)..

This is also one of the main concerns and areas of investigation of the Osservatorio del diritto civile e commerciale (ODCC), a peer reviewed law journal established three years ago by a group of young Italian professors of civil and commercial law and published by Il Mulino. However so young, the review has already been ranked as a top journal and listed in the “A” category in the recent classification of the (Italian and foreign) law reviews, published by the Italian agency for the evaluation of academic research (ANVUR). Furthermore, the ODCC has recently been admitted (possibly as the only one Italian journal on private law) to the Scopus database.

Each volume of the review consists of a part in English, which collects articles pertaining to “National Traditions and Supranational Trends of Private Law”.