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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has started to impact many facets of the economy and people's routine activities. This article contributes to our understanding of how the legal system is reacting to the ongoing uptake of AI and the disputes or right infringements this uptake creates. Select legal cases regarding the use of AI technology for automated decisions are reviewed, with a focus on filings in Europe and the USA. This exercise reveals which type of legal challenges can be expected when it comes to deploying automated systems in these jurisdictions. Additionally, incipient regulatory efforts targeting AI on both sides of the North Atlantic are introduced and briefly discussed. The paper sheds light on how different legal systems accommodate an emerging technology with disruptive potential and offers a mapping of exemplary legal risks for prospective actors or organisations seeking to develop and deploy AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial crisis in 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic today have made it clear that both financial and medical crises spread pervasively across borders. The financial crisis proved that the health of the entire European banking system stands and falls with the health of a single systemically important bank. As such, in the past decade, European Union (EU)-wide cooperation and regulation have been strengthened to ensure financial health across Europe. Today, the COVID-19 crisis reveals the de facto existence of a European healthcare system, where Member States’ medical health is interlinked and challenged. It too highlights the need for a more coordinated approach. This paper will draw lessons from European financial regulation and stress testing to make recommendations for EU-wide healthcare. The paper will show the latent benefits that a stress test might have on healthcare performance through mechanisms of governmentality. Moreover, it will pinpoint shortcomings in the financial stress test that could pose looming dangers for a European Health Union, such as a lack of de facto risk sharing. The paper concludes with pragmatic suggestions for a way forward in European healthcare regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the COVID-19 pandemic, whistleblowers have become the essential watchdogs disrupting suppression and control of information. Many governments have intentionally not disclosed information or failed to do so in a timely manner, misled the public or even promoted false beliefs. Fierce public interest defenders are pushing back against this censorship. Dr Fen and Dr Wenliang were the first whistleblowers in China to report that a new pandemic was possibly underway, and ever since, numerous other whistleblowers around the world have been reporting on the spread of the virus, the lack of medical equipment and other information of public interest. This paper maps the relevant whistleblowing cases in China, the USA and Europe and shows that many whistleblowers are initially censored and face disciplinary measures or even dismissals. At the same time, whistleblowing during the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn public attention to the shortcomings of institutional reporting systems and a wider appreciation of whistleblowers as uniquely placed to expose risk at early stages. Ultimately, whistleblowing as a means of transparency is not only becoming ever less controversial, but during COVID-19 it has become the "remedy" to censorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and equity crowdfunding with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and explores the corresponding risks and limitations of these different fundraising practices, with a view to analysing the extent to which the latter should be subject to the same regulatory framework as the former. After assessing the underlying principles and current regulatory framework for IPOs and equity crowdfunding, with a focus on Europe and the US, we investigate the possibility of applying existing financial regulations to ICOs. Drawing from the notion of "functional equivalence", we contend that many ICOs share a sufficient number of similarities with traditional IPOs and equity crowdfunding, to be regulated in a similar manner. However, given the various attempts by token issuers to escape from the scope of securities laws by assigning a different function to their ICOs tokens, we argue that principle-based regulation based on an in-depth risk-analysis could be an effective way of addressing the regulation of ICOs, thereby moving from "functional equivalence" to "risk equivalence". Finally, we explore the use of blockchain technology as a regulatory technology, incorporating specific rules and constraints into the technological fabric of an ICO, in order to ensure compliance with the fundamental principles of financial regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to secure their fishery products market share in the EU, third countries, especially the developing ones, tend to transplant EU requirements into their domestic legal order. In reality, theses transplanted laws do not correspond to measures to reach a level of protection needed by the country of destination. Based upon the case of Benin, this paper intends to show that when these legal transplants are adversely made, they can in some cases have disastrous effects. It can be argued that an unintended result of EU policy was that it contributed to the collapse of the shrimp industry in Benin. The paper moreover argues that despite the stringency of the EU requirements, the implementation of its control policy might inadequately protect European consumers of shrimp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public food safety authorities in Europe and elsewhere have recently developed forms of coordination and collaboration with private compliance systems in the monitoring and enforcement of public food safety laws. Such policies bring with them the risk of regulatory capture, loss of transparency and fuzzy accountability relationships. In this paper we analyse how the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) assesses and monitors the functioning of private food safety control systems so it can use these private systems in its own enforcement activities. We do so by discussing two national private systems that have been formally accepted by the NVWA and are as such subject to its meta-control. The article examines the safeguards that the public enforcement agency uses while coordinating its own activities with private food safety controls, the advantages and risks involved in this strategy, and the extent to which this policy can be improved. From this we draw lessons for public agencies elsewhere willing to engage with private compliance mechanisms. The study is based on the analysis of policy documents, public and private regulation and open-ended interviews with representatives of the public and private sector in the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author offers his views on the article "Risk versus Hazard Assessment-How to Regulate in the 21st Century," by Professor Ragnar Loftstedt, published within the issue of the journal. It discusses the assumptions and conclusions regarding regulations of chemicals in Europe presented in Loftstedt's paper, particularly remarking on the definition and critique on the risk assessment approach. The author also comments on Loftstedt's view on the European democracy and regulation.