Historical Development of the Law of Contracts in the DRC

The legal history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is closely linked to the Belgian colonization of the country. At the arrival of Belgian colonizers in the DRC, the society was ruled by unwritten customary laws, differing from one region to another. Belgian authorities then substituted those customary laws with the civil law they inherited from France during the Napoleonic era in order to meet one of the requirements of the 1885 Berlin Conference, providing adequate legislation for the Congo. They also enacted some acts dealing with commercial matters, such as business requirements, which were later referred to as the code of commerce. That inherited law continued to govern civil and commercial sales contracts alike for a long period after independence until quite recently. Owing to a lack of renewal, Congolese business law rules were becoming out-dated and were no longer appropriate for modern trade desires and urgently required modernization. That led to the adoption of OHADA law. The Uniform Act on General Commercial Law provisions constitute one of the bases for the Congolese commercial sales law, in addition to the non-conflicting provisions of the Congolese Code of Obligations that were not displaced. Implementing new laws creates sometimes transition problems. This article traces and evaluates critically the above developments. It considers some of the gaps met in Congolese sales law and the way they were filled, before demonstrating how OHADA law rules cohabit with former Congolese sales law rules not revoked