Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:230
Date: 2000-05-11
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Right of establishment;Freedom to provide services
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: United Kingdom

Summary of the Judgment 
Freedom of movement for persons — Freedom of establishment — Self-employed 
commercial agents — Directive 86/653 — Provisions guaranteeing certain rights to the 
agent after termination of the agency contract — Territorial scope — Agent carrying on 
his activity in a Member State — Application of those provisions — Principal established 
in a non-member country — Agency contact governed by the law of that country — No 
effect 
(Council Directive 86/653, Arts 17 to 19) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-381/98 
Articles 17 and 18 of Directive 86/653 on 
the coordination of the laws of the Member 
States relating to self-employed commercial 
agents, which guarantee certain rights to 
commercial agents after termination of 
agency contracts, must be applied where 
the commercial agent carried on his activity 
in a Member State although the principal is 
established in a non-member country and a 
clause of the contract stipulates that the 
contract is to be governed by the law of 
that country. 
The purpose of the regime established in 
Articles 17 to 19 of the Directive, which is 
mandatory in nature, is to protect, for all 
commercial agents, freedom of establish­
ment and the operation of undistorted 
competition in the internal market, so that 
they must be applied where the situation is 
closely connected with the Community 
(see paras 21, 24-26 and operative part) 
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