Category Archives: Consumer Law
Harris and Kaufman, ‘Consumer Law Meets the New Company Store’
ABSTRACT Firms have discovered new ways to extract value from workers beyond traditional labor exploitation. In labor markets increasingly characterized by monopsony power, platform work, and financialization, employers push a variety of financial products onto workers and establish surveillance systems that monetize worker data. This Article introduces the Triple Extraction Model to explain how firms […]
‘Safari Choice-of-Law Clauses’
In June 2026, I went on a safari in Tanzania with my family. We went on a hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti, visited a Masai village, and saw all of the Big Five. Before we embarked on these adventures, we were asked to sign an Assumption of Risk, Waiver of Liability, and Indemnification […]
Derek Whayman, ‘The motor finance litigation’
INTRODCUTION The agency problem describes the information asymmetry where the agent knows more than the principal, who accordingly is vulnerable to the agent taking advantage. It is the central issue in the motor finance litigation, where the basic facts are that a consumer buys a car on credit from a dealer who takes a secret […]
Jianyun Wang, ‘Data Rights and Price Discrimination’
ABSTRACT This paper develops a model of data-driven price discrimination to study the welfare-optimal allocation of data rights between consumers and platforms. Consumers understand that their platform usage generates data that may reveal their willingness to pay and may therefore behave strategically by distorting usage. The platform invests in data-processing technology to improve inference and […]
Hurwitz and Dickinson, ‘The Consumer Protection Paradox: Learning, Feedback, and the Limits of Consumer Protection Law’
ABSTRACT Modern consumer-protection law is built on a simplifying picture: The consumer and her vulnerabilities are treated as static over time. That model fits consumer protection’s regulatory posture, which evaluates injuries at the moment of choice. But it fits markets poorly. Consumers differ in sophistication and-more importantly – they can become more sophisticated through experience. […]
Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, van Heusden and Kantorowicz, ‘Consumers’ Rights in the Shadow of the Brand: A Conjoint Experiment on the Valuation and Trade-Offs of Contractual Rights’
ABSTRACT With the rise of standard contracts, tensions persist between protecting consumers from unfair terms and preserving freedom of contract. A key concern is that consumers may waive legal rights, often unknowingly, particularly when dealing with trusted brands. To address this, we conducted a conjoint experiment with a representative US sample to evaluate how consumers […]
Xiaoqian Hu, ‘The “Nuisance” Of Discrimination’
ABSTRACT Antidiscrimination law is in real trouble. People on the left attack it for being incapable of addressing structural inequalities in America. People on the right attack it for demonizing and reversely discriminating against dominant groups. This Article focuses on the Fair Housing Act (FHA) as a major antidiscrimination law and takes the first deep […]
Russell Hewitson, ‘The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 – revolution or recalibration?’
The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025 and represents the most significant overhaul of the private rented sector in England since the Housing Act 1988. The Act creates a new landscape for rented residential property. Whether acting for a buyer acquiring a tenanted investment property, a landlord seeking to understand […]
Travis Gilly, ‘Phantom Consent: Formation Failure, Inaccessible Interfaces, and the Collapse of the Clickwrap Shield’
ABSTRACT Every consumer platform on the internet sits behind the same front door: a wall of terms presented through an interface engineered to be clicked rather than read, followed by an Accept button. Courts enforce what happens at that door under an objective theory of assent that asks whether a reasonably prudent offeree would have […]
Giesela Ruhl, ‘Cross-border Consumer Protection’
ABSTRACT Cross-border consumer transactions are essential to the functioning of the European Single Market. Yet, despite decades of European integration, consumers and businesses continue to face legal uncertainty arising from the coexistence of multiple national legal systems. Uncertainty regarding the applicable law, jurisdiction, and the enforcement of rights may discourage cross-border contracting and thereby undermine […]