Private Law Theory

ABSTRACT
A number of new European Union (EU) law acts dealing with the digital economy reference fairness as one of their main goals or benchmarks, which has sparked renewed interest in the normative meaning of fairness and the role it plays in the regulation of the digital market. This paper draws on a private law theory of justice, that of commutative justice, to propose a reading of the term fairness within these acts and their new legal instruments, which is grounded in the principles of private law exchanges. Because access to and fair exchanges on digital markets lie at the heart of these acts, we develop a normative reconstruction of specific provisions of the acts that is based on an analysis of commutative justice and that provides a conceptual framework for interpreting and sharpening their objectives and instruments. In doing so, this paper wants to shed light on this central aspect of fairness and its implications for the emerging EU framework governing digital markets.

Mendelsohn, Juliane and Hantel, Judith, Commutative Justice as Fairness in the Digital Economy – A Private Law Interpretation of Fairness in EU Digital Acts (July 31, 2026).