The coronavirus epidemic is shaping a situation that can be considered an event of force majeure, characterised by unpredictability, exceptionality and uncertainty in its duration and then impossibility of performing and termination of contract. It is necessary to take into account also the provisions adopted by national legislators concerning limitation of economic activities, working, travelling, moving, etc. These limitations result in orders and prohibitions, modifying the performance of contracts, sometimes causing impossibility. In Italian law, these events are considered “factum principis,” whose legal effects are similar to force majeure. Factum principis and force majeure affect long-term contracts, and may cause temporary supervening impossibility or supervening excessively onerous nature of the performance. In the first case, the performance may be postponed, in the second the contract shall be terminated. The Italian Civil Code’s provisions suggest how the risk may be allocated between the parties in different situations submitted to the judge.

THE CORONAVIRUS AS AN EVENT OF FORCE MAJEURE AND AS A FACTUM PRINCIPIS

The coronavirus epidemic was defined as an emergency by decree-law no 6 of 23 February 2020 and a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 20 March 2020. The Organization stated that “The COVID-19 emergency committee has agreed unanimously that the epidemic still constitutes an international public health emergency”, and on 4 May it added that it is still a global public health emergency. These declarations, formulated internationally, shape a situation that can certainly be considered an event of force majeure: it is unforeseeable, exceptional and uncertain in its duration.

In Italy, the first provisions were adopted by the Government, in the form of Prime Minister’s decrees and then in the form of Council of Ministers’ decrees, as well as by individual Ministers in the form of ministerial decrees; the Parliament was involved in the conversion of those decrees into statutes. Support was given to the sanitary system, to businesses in the form of tax credits, to big firms in the form of guarantees, pursuant to the Law-decree no 34/2020.

Many limitations were introduced to individual freedoms, commercial businesses and professional activities.

To react to the effects of the pandemic, we wondered whether it was preferable to introduce one or more statutes concerning long-term contracts, or to leave the solution of all questions to the Civil Code.