Like catering, banqueting is a contract not governed by specific legislative provisions, and has been the subject of scholarly inquiry regarding which legal framework should be applied. The analytical approach follows that developed for catering contracts, although it is somewhat simplified by the fact that banqueting generally lacks the element of periodicity, which excludes the applicability of the supply model. Banqueting, therefore, is equally subject to the ongoing dialectic between legal scholarship and case law in the treatment of innominate contracts. Courts have in fact classified it as a mixed contract, which may incorporate features of nominated contracts such as contracts for work, service procurement contracts, and lease agreements31. This position has been recently reaffirmed by a ruling of the Court of Cassation, which held that the banqueting contract constitutes an atypical contract of a mixed nature, incorporating elements drawn from several different types of nominated contracts32. According to the judgment, the applicable legal framework must be identified through the doctrines of predominance and absorption, whereby the rules governing service procurement contracts are to be applied33. Precisely due to the greater factual simplicity in the structure of banqueting, the prevailing legal scholarship also tends to classify it as a procurement contract, to which Articles 1655 et seq. of the Italian Civil Code are applicable. As for the ancillary services, which may be traced back to legal categories such as agency, lease, or transport, the corresponding provisions governing these typical contractual forms are to be applied by analogy34. the arrangement of the tables based on the number of guests who have confirmed their presence (it is in fact common practice to send the invitations at least a couple of months before the event, also asking for confirmation of presence well in advance of the same) and the consequent preparation of the service, including any entertainment, which is often chosen by the engaged couple. Tribunale di Sciacca, n. 523/2024 of 28-10-2024. 31 The Court of Monza states that banqueting should be assimilated to a mixed contract, which presents some elements of named contracts such as the contract for works, the contract for services and the rental, with characteristics of a contract in favor of a third party”. Trib. Monza SE. IV, 8 febbraio 2007. 32 Cass. Civ., sez. II, ord. N. 26485 del 17 October 2019, in this case the Supreme Court classified the disputed contract as a banqueting contract and applied to it the provisions of articles 1667 et seq. of the civil code. 33 See C.M. Bianca, Il contratto, Milano, 2000, p. 480: “Two concepts are provided for the mixed contract: according to the jurisprudence, in the mixed contract the elements of several typical transactions concur and merge into a single cause. According to another approach, several causes would concur within the relationship. To resolve the problem of the applicable discipline, two criteria are proposed, that of absorption on the basis of which the discipline of the contractual figure that is prevalent is applicable or that of the combination on the basis of which the discipline of the type to which the element itself belongs will be applied to each element (combination criterion). 34 See M. Pittalis, cit. p. 306; of the same opinion G. Benelli, I contratti di ristorazione e catering, cit., p. 197. A. Papa unanimously excludes the hypothesis of sale. I contratti dell’azienda ristorativa, Florence, 2007, p. 21, where he states: “It can be safely stated that the service offered by the restaurateur, in terms of complexity, application of 43 ITALY, FOOD, CONTRACTS
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