Dear Colleagues:

I would first like to express my congratulations for your designation as governmental and independent experts for the preparation of international instruments on Consumer Protection. Welcome to the Group of Experts.

Opening of Preparatory Work: Preparatory work will commence the week of April 3, 2006 with a preliminary discussion of the Draft Convention on Law Applicable to some Consumer Contracts.

During this stage, Experts will have the opportunity to present their preliminary comments to the text of the Convention. In addition to general and technical comments, it is recommended that Governmental Experts detail any specific positions of their Delegations.

Mandate of the Group of Experts: The Group of Experts has the mandate to negotiate and draft three Inter-American instruments on Consumer Protection:

1) Convention on Choice of Law concerning some Consumer Contracts;

2) Model Law on Jurisdiction and Conflict of Laws Rules for Consumer Contracts; and

3) Model Law on Monetary Redress for Consumer Transactions.

Discussion Forum: Preparatory work will take place via the CIDIP-VII Discussion Forum for which each of you has registered.

This Forum will provide each Expert (whether independent or member of an official delegation) the opportunity to communicate the official position of their governments and his or her independent comments and opinions. The Forum will also provide access to the drafts convention and model laws subject to negotiation as well as detailed reports concerning the progress in the negotiations.

The Department of International Law will monitor the Forum, will review all comments and documents and will draft revised versions of the documents based on the comments and contributions of the Experts.

Work Calendar: Work cycles will be managed in discussion rounds, each one encompassing a complete yet separate discussion of the three instruments on consumer protection.

The First Round of discussions will adhere to the following calendar:

1) Preliminary Discussions on the Convention on Choice of Law (April 3 - 28, 2006);

2) Preliminary Discussion on the Model La won Jurisdiction (May 1 - 31, 2006)

3) Article-by-Article discussion of the Convention on Choice of Law (June 1 - 30, 2006);

4) Article-by-Article Discussion of the Model La won Jurisdiction (July 3 -l 28, 2006); and

5) General Discussion on the Model La won Consumer Redress (August 1 - 31, 2006).

Once the First Round of Discussion is complete, the Group of Experts will proceed to draft revised versions of the three instruments on consumer protection. At that time, a new calendar will be presented for a Second Round of Discussion (as necessary) of issues and articles remaining outstanding during the previous Round. This process will be followed until the completion of preparatory work on the topic.

Language: The features and documents of the Forum (with few exceptions) are in English and Spanish, which will be the languages of the Group of Experts. Although official documents will be translated, Expert comments and contributions will appear only in the language in which they were presented.

Additional Communications: All communications will preferably take place over the Discussion Forum. However, specific questions concerning the technical operation of the forum can be directed to Forum Webmaster Francisco Montero (fmontero@oas.org) and specific questions regarding the topic and procedure can be directed to the Forum Moderator John Wilson (jwilson@oas.org).

[John Wilson]