ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, the rise of online marketplaces such as Amazon.com has profoundly changed the retail landscape. The current pandemic has further accelerated consumers’ shift towards online buying in general and online marketplaces in particular. As a result, traditional distribution chains have been replaced by a market structure dominated by digital intermediaries. While this development has increased consumer choice, it has also enabled the influx of unsafe and defective products to US and EU consumer retail markets. It is a matter of controversy whether and how product liability rules, which have been designed for the traditional distribution chain model, can be applied to online intermediaries. Against this background, this Article explores how courts and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic are trying to adjust the existing product liability framework to the new reality of the platform economy. The comparative analysis shows that the regulatory strategies in Europe and the US differ considerably …
Busch, Christoph, Rethinking Product Liability Rules for Online Marketplaces: A Comparative Perspective (July 31, 2021).
First posted 2021-08-03 18:00:19
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