Abstract:
This article uses the example of one of the best-known global payment systems provided by an online platform, PayPal, to analyse the role of private legal orders in creating new markets beyond jurisdictional borders. It shows that a relatively uniform legal order reduces risks involved in cross-border transactions and in this way enables transnational markets. While transnational law is more easily created by private entities rather than states, it remains embedded in state laws. The continuous role of state law in shaping transnational private legal orders is guaranteed because the latter operate with the endorsement and support of states. In this way states facilitate globalization. At the same time, the impact of state laws is fragmentary and disintegrates the applicable global private legal framework. Finally, the scattered influence of state laws undermines the protection offered to consumers. This is particularly important, because mutual rights and obligations between transnational private rule-makers, like the online platform PayPal, and their ‘users’ tend to be strongly biased in favour of the former.
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Agnieszka Janczuk-Gorywoda, ‘Online Platforms as Providers of Transnational Payments Law’. (2016) 24 European Review of Private Law, Issue 2, pp. 223–251.
First posted 2016-04-26 06:25:11
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