Category Archives: Consumer Law
‘Information duties in consumer credit: the CJEU in C-677/23’
“At the end of January, the CJEU delivered another judgment interpreting Directive 2008/48 on Consumer Credit. In C-677/23 AB, FB v Slovenská sporitel’ňa as consumers alleged that the credit contract did not contain all the necessary elements provided by the Directive. The dispute thus involved the interpretation of Article 10(2), which provided the mandatory content […]
Infantino, Miscenic and Tereszkiewicz, ‘Buying Insurance Online: Are European Consumers Protected or Vulnerable?’
ABSTRACT In Europe as elsewhere, contemporary insurance now involves digitally active players (insurance companies, intermediaries, platforms) and the use of all kinds of technological innovations. Present-day consumers expect a flexible supply of services, including the possibility of selecting products via comparison websites, the ability to enter into, perform and terminate contracts online, and the opportunity […]
Pascale Chapdelaine, ‘Algorithmic Price Personalization and the Limits of Anti-Discrimination Law’
ABSTRACT As much attention is turned to regulating AI systems to minimize the risk of harm, including the one caused by discriminatory biased outputs, a better understanding of how commercial practices may contravene anti-discrimination law is critical. This article investigates the instances in which algorithmic price personalization, (ie, setting prices based on consumers’ personal information […]
Schwarcz, Cude, Logue and Marquez Alcala, ‘Read But Not Understood? An Empirical Analysis Of Consumer Comprehension In Homeowners Insurance’
ABSTRACT Modern contract law assumes that consumers meaningfully assent to the standard forms that govern their daily lives. However, this assumption is widely regarded as a legal fiction for two key reasons: first, most consumers do not read standard forms, and second, even those who do often struggle to fully comprehend their terms and implications. […]
‘Remedies to Digital Vulnerability in European Private Law’: University of Trieste, 10-11 April 2025
The Trieste conference follows two previous conferences held within the same project in Ferrara (2023) and in Rome Tor Vergata (2024), which examined the legal status of digital vulnerability in European private law and its interaction with artificial intelligence, respectively. Building on the previous findings and starting from the assumption that many, if not all, […]
‘Contract Law’s Hidden Civil Rights Foundation’
Erik Encarnacion, ‘Section 1981 as Contract Law’, available at SSRN (10 January 2025). Erik Encarnacion’s ‘Section 1981 as Contract Law’ presents a striking claim: 42 USC § 1981, a statute primarily understood as a piece of federal antidiscrimination law, is, in fact, a foundational component of contract law in the United States. Section 1981, originally […]
Ajunwa and Kamer, ‘Data Privacy by Contract’
ABSTRACT Protecting consumer privacy rights presents a particular challenge given the prevalence of data breaches. This Article notes that current law is woefully inadequate in protecting the privacy rights of consumers. Notably, the law fails in the following four areas: (1) classification of consumer data, (2) lack of a comprehensive approach, (3) after-the-fact focus, and […]
Susan Bright, ‘Escalating Ground Rents in Residential Leases and Consumer Protection’
ABSTRACT Escalating ground rents in long residential leases (rents that double or are adjusted by reference to an index at regular intervals) have been described as onerous and can prevent property sales. This article considers whether they are legally enforceable under consumer protection legislation. Although litigation would be needed both to clarify the application of […]
Weisbord and Sterk, ‘Joint Bank Accounts: Who Needs Them?’
ABSTRACT Joint bank accounts, once known as a ‘poor man’s will’, emerged more than a century ago as a probate avoidance device. This Article contends that joint accounts no longer serve a useful estate planning function, and they pose an unacceptably high risk to banking consumers because the legal framework governing lifetime ownership rights is […]
‘Two Universities Defeat COVID Claims’
For years now, we have been following cases in which students sue their universities alleging breach of contract or unjust enrichment based on the universities’ decisions to close their campuses because of the COVID pandemic in the Spring of 2020. The cases have become a useful teaching tool for me. Not all relationships are contractual. […]