BANK CONTRACTS IN THE NEW ROMANIAN CIVIL CODE.docVIP

588 Challenges of the Knowledge Society. Legal sciences BANK CONTRACTS IN THE NEW ROMANIAN CIVIL CODE DAN VELICU * Abstract The adoption of the new Civil Code and its entry into force on October 1st 2011 has involved an extensive reform of the private law. The new Code, as its authors notice, has aimed primarily to achieve a unification of the private law, the largest part of the land commerce regulations from the commerce code adopted in 1887 being absorbed into the new text and, secondly, to harmonize the basic institutions of the private law with the European regulations and directives. Beyond these two major objectives, the new Civil Code comprises regulations with innovative character compared to the Romanian law, such as bank contracts. This study is preliminary and aims to highlight the inspiring models of the new Civil Code and to analyse the functionality of the newly used concepts. Keywords: new Civil Code, bank contracts, bank current account, bank deposit, rental of value boxes 1. Preliminary considerations. The new Romanian Civil Code, which entered into force on October 1 2011, has contributed, st besides from the modernization of some institutions of civil and commercial law and the harmonization of various legal mechanisms with the norms of European Union law, to the innovative regulation of some types of contracts. The typology of banking contracts seems to be this respect one of the aspects with obviously innovative character. The old Commercial Code, although mentioning banking contracts between operations considered acts of trade (art.3), did not offer any definition about them and did not regulate them separately. In the predominant conception of the legal literature of the XIXth century, the banking contracts are nothing but mere applications of civil contracts like the civil deposit or loan. They acquire a commercial character when they are used e