Category Archives: Consumer Law
Yunsieg Kim, ‘Incognito Consumer Harm’
ABSTRACT What good is a legal system built for visible injuries in a world where injury is designed to be invisible? This Article identifies and theorizes incognito consumer harm: consumer-facing wrongdoing designed to remain unnoticed by most victims. A robot vacuum cleaner covertly records video inside consumers’ homes. A seemingly helpful browser extension records everything […]
Protect Borrowers and Ben Kaufman, ‘Rent Now, Pain Later: How “Rent Now, Pay Later” Loans Put Working People at Risk’
ABSTRACT Amid rising housing costs in the United States, a new market of ‘Rent Now, Pay Later’ (RNPL) loans has emerged, offering short-term credit to tenants struggling to meet rent payments. This paper examines the structure and practices of RNPL lenders, drawing on market analysis, consumer complaints, and publicly available financial and regulatory data. The […]
Nicholas Mouttotos, ‘A Requiem for the “Illusion” of Consent in Consumer Contracts?’
INTRODUCTION At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly, AI agents are projected to do much of the work on behalf of consumers, which involves not only product/service comparisons, but also making transactional decisions. Online travel firms are developing ‘AI-powered travel budd[ies]’ that will be entrusted with customers’ credit cards and make the […]
Contemporary Conflicts and Challenges in Irish Land Law – special issue of Irish Judicial Studies Journal
The Role of the Landlord’s Intention in Terminating Residential Tenancies (Laura Farrell) Choosing the Remedy for Proprietary Estoppel (John Mee) The Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1980 – Time for an Update? (Ruth Cannon) Multi-Unit Developments – Problems in Practice and Proposals for Reform (Deirdre Ni Fhloinn) Effecting Forfeiture by Peaceable Re-Entry: a critical analysis […]
Barbara Ballan, ‘Climate-washing Litigation: From Puffery to Material Lies’
ABSTRACT We are living in an age of information on the verge of a climate catastrophe. Access to data and increasing awareness of climate risks create consumer interest and demand for climate-friendly products and services. The use of climate-related information for advertising purposes can generate value that boost businesses’ revenue. Conversely, misinformation can also generate […]
Mateusz Grochowski, ‘Algorithmic Price Fairness’
ABSTRACT Algorithmic pricing has quietly become a defining feature of online consumer contracting. Using automated models fed by large-scale personal data, firms now set individualized prices by predicting each consumer’s willingness to pay. These practices are widely condemned as ‘unfair’ – yet fairness is invoked more often as a slogan than as a legal standard, […]
Nancy Kim, ‘Consent and Dispute Resolution Clauses’
ABSTRACT Dispute resolution provisions are routinely found in the boilerplate section of all types of contracts, ranging from negotiated paper agreements to website Terms of Service. The law permits the parties to a contract to change the default rules that would otherwise govern their transaction, including how any disputes will be resolved. The ability of […]
Andrea Boyack, ‘Modern Consumer Contracting and Online Terms’
ABSTRACT Company-crafted terms and conditions that supposedly govern modern consumer transactions are more lengthy, complex, and ubiquitous than ever before. Proliferation of online terms has been accompanied by increased judicial willingness to deem a contract duly formed based on passive and unknowing indicia of assent. Today’s consumer contracts are presumptively synonymous with a company’s online […]
Caro, Gillis and Nelson, ‘Differential validity in fair lending’
ABSTRACT Fair lending’s disparate impact doctrine aims to address lending disparities. But which disparities? Traditional fair lending has narrowly focused on equal outcomes – examining differences in loan approval rates or interest rates. However, this singular focus overlooks other dimensions of disparities that are essential for fair credit access. This article challenges the conventional emphasis […]
‘Do oat stalks have udders? Consumer confusion in the Supreme Court’
The Supreme Court has just come up with a ruling in an attempt to end a dispute over non-cow based milk products. In April 2021, plant-based company Oatly registered the trade mark ‘POST MILK GENERATION’ for use in relation to certain categories of products. The issue on this appeal was the validity of that trade […]