Is the Discussion Common Law versus Civil Law on Economic Performance Relevant?

Since their first publication in 2004, the successive Doing Business reports issued by the World Bank, premised a presumption of superiority of the common law over civil law in many aspects, have evolved such that their quantitative indicators of financial regulation no longer allows to differentiate the economic influence of one legal tradition from the other. The neutrality of the division between the common law and civil law systems on the economic performance of national regulations is also confirmed by other comparative instruments created by various organisations around the world, including in particular the Legal Certainty Indicator (Indicateur de sécurité juridique) of the Foundation for Continental Law. Historical, economic, linguistic and cultural considerations as well as the strategies deployed by States to promote their own system of law in emerging countries thus explain the predominance of the common law in international business law. The article shows that the competitive relationships between systems create a convergence by replication or adaptation of business legal instruments deemed to be efficient and provoke an evolution of national regulations for the standpoint of economic attractiveness. Other studies show otherwise that the major economic operators wriggle out of the jurisdiction of national courts to settle their business relationships.