El artículo 4.3 del Reglamento Roma I. Una verdadera cláusula de excepción

The reach and scope of the escape clause found in article 4.5 of the Rome Convention has been fiercely debated in the last years. The main participants in this debate held either a rigid conception of the escape clause that regarded it as applicable only in exceptional cases; or the opposing viewpoint, which can be described as a flexible interpretation, according to which judges may dismiss presumptions at any moment whenever they deem that there is one law with more links to the contract. The Rome I Regulation on the law applicable to international contracts, aware of the many problems posed by the aforementioned article, has introduced some important modifications concerning the regulated issue. This article intends to examine the modifications of the exception clause found in the Rome I Regulation by studying the multiple problems in case-law related to the escape clause of the Rome Convention, with the purpose of ascertaining the scope of its changes and its possible use by judges of States parties.