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Copyright of Computer und Recht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Foreign-owned banks from the European Union dominate Serbia's financial landscape. However, one of the controversies in the banking sector in the last decades has been approval and similar fees in loan contracts. The aim of this paper is to take a look at this issue through the lens of a consumer. Since there is no official data on the aggregate amount of processing, approval and similar fees in thousands of lawsuits against banks, the methodology in this research is largely based on the analysis of relevant legal acts and case law. A minor part is the statistical analysis of the context of the consolidation process in the banking sector in the last decade. The research has found multiple issues in the application of the rule of law in regard to consumer loans. Not only did banks prepare loan contracts with provisions that allowed them to deduct one-off payments of approval and similar fees from a loan amount, but customers may have paid for approving, disbursing and managing a loan twice or even multiple times. There were also cases showing that the process of approving a loan did not meet the requirements of providing the customer with adequate information in a pre-contractual phase, leading to questions on transparency and the balance between a bank and its customer. Future research would benefit from quantitative data about the amount of approval and similar fees in lawsuits and the exact number of lawsuits against banks in this respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Directive 1993/13/EEC on unfair contract terms (UCTD) is one of the oldest pieces of European consumer legislation, formulated before the development of the Internet as the leading marketplace, and still in force, with no major changes since its adoption. As the most significant piece of consumer legislation not substantially amended following the consumer law Fitness Check that resulted in the adoption of Directive 2019/2161/EU, it is questionable whether the UCTD remains fit for purpose in regulating the terms and conditions in the user agreements and policies of social media platforms to address the existence of the social platform related digital vulnerabilities of consumers. This paper assesses the potential and limits of data-based reforms to the UCTD, in procedural notification requirements and substantive unfair terms controls, before demonstrating how the UCTD could be brought up-to-date while preserving commercial certainty and avoiding dramatic changes. This could be done simply by mandating measures that are already being taken, either by social media platforms themselves or by other major tech companies, and by elaborating existing requirements with standards that are analogous to other already-existing consumer rights. The assessment of the real unfair-terms problems highlighted by regulatory actions around the world against two major traders, TikTok and Meta (including Facebook and WhatsApp), may illustrate well the inadequacies in the minimum protections currently afforded by the UCTD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania's accession to the European Union has produced profound legal changes, including in legislative, doctrinal and practical terms. In matters of contract, the provisions of the European directives on the regulation of legal relations between professionals and consumers have created and continue to produce disputes, especially in the field of the harmonisation of the new consumerist institutions to the common national law. At the present stage, the general theory of the contract is subject to pressure exerted by the new rules, full of vitality, of the law of consumption or competition law. The main consumerist institutions subject to the national implementation process are: pre-contractual obligations, unfair terms and the consumer's right of withdrawal. The study insists on the difficulty of harmonizing the above institutions, in the context of the new legislative changes in the field, especially of the Emergency Ordinance of the Government. no. 58/2022. The work is structured in four sections: "The common law contract and the consumption contract", "Pre-contractual obligations: conditions of validity special to consumption", "Unfair terms: manifestations of pre-contractual will" and "Consumer withdrawal: denunciation of progressive consent". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timeshare contracts are expressly protected as consumer contracts under Article 6(4)(c) Rome I. With the extended notion of timeshare in Directive 2008/122/EC, the question is whether timeshare-related contracts should be protected as consumer contracts. Additionally, unlike Article 6(4)(c) Rome I, Article 17 Brussels Ia does not explicitly include timeshare contracts into its material scope nor mention the concept of timeshare. It gives rise to the question whether, and if yes, how, timeshare contracts should be protected as consumer contracts under Brussels Ia. This article argues that both timeshare contracts and timeshare-related contracts should be protected as consumer contracts under EU private international law. To this end, Brussels Ia should establish a new provision, Article 17(4), which expressly includes timeshare contracts in its material scope, by referring to the timeshare notion in Directive 2008/122/EC in the same way as in Article 6(4)(c) Rome I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effectiveness of the Consumer Protection Act 1999 in ensuring that Malaysian consumers can make informed decisions and that their interests are adequately protected in modern electronic commerce (e-commerce) transactions. It first identifies the key elements required of a modern consumer protection framework and subsequently uses this model as a yardstick to assess the legal frameworks in two jurisdictions. The first jurisdiction is Malaysia, a common law country that, although considered a potentially important regional player in the development of e-commerce, has a relatively underdeveloped consumer protection framework. The second jurisdiction is England and Wales, which is likewise a common law jurisdiction but one whose consumer protection framework has been influenced by European Union consumer protection policy and legislation that has further provided the impetus for significant legal reform in both offline and online environments. This article examines the extent to which the laws in both jurisdictions provide appropriate protection, considering countervailing issues (eg, protection of commercial innovation and competition) and identifying potential gaps in provision (eg, inadequate regulation of new platforms or business methods). Based on these analyses, the article proposes an 'evergreen' consumer protection framework to improve the legal landscape of e-commerce in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the potential of artificial intelligence for identifying cases where digital vendors fail to comply with legal obligations, an endeavour that can generate insights about business practices. While heated regulatory debates about online platforms and AI are currently ongoing, we can look to existing horizontal norms, especially concerning the fairness of standard terms, which can serve as a benchmark against which to assess business-to-consumer practices in light of European Union law. We argue that such an assessment can to a certain extent be automated; we thus present an AI system for the automatic detection of unfair terms in business-to-consumer contracts, a system developed as part of the CLAUDETTE project. On the basis of the dataset prepared in this project, we lay out the landscape of contract terms used in different digital consumer markets and theorize their categories, with a focus on five categories of clauses concerning (i) the limitation of liability, (ii) unilateral changes to the contract and/or service, (iii) unilateral termination of the contract, (iv) content removal, and (v) arbitration. In so doing, the paper provides empirical support for the broader claim that AI systems for the automated analysis of textual documents can offer valuable insights into the practices of online vendors and can also provide valuable help in their legal qualification. We argue that the role of technology in protecting consumers in the digital economy is critical and not sufficiently reflected in EU legislative debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has put in place EU rules on consumer contracts and enforcement of consumer rights. These tendencies have also had a significant impact on the Hungarian legislation of recent years. We would describe some provisions of the new Hungarian Code of Civil Procedure concerning consumer enforcement and the Hungarian experience of Directive 93/13/EEC so far. The new Hungarian Code of Civil Procedure has reformed domestic rules on jurisdiction in the field of a consumer's claim arising from a contractual relationship. The article also covers the following areas of law: Hungarian experience with foreign currency-based loan agreements, reforms to the preliminary ruling procedure in the new Hungarian Code of Civil Procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Católica Law Review is the property of Catolica Law Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The authors address the origins and evolution of consumer law in Cuba and the influence of European Union consumer law on development in Cuba. The transition from the Cuban Socialist State to the current Cuban economic model plays a key role in the consumer protection legislation of the country, where several legislative reforms are on their way. The result is a divided economy and divided legal system depending on who is the party to the consumer contract, a publicly owned or private company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Review of Private Law / Revista Română de Drept Privat is the property of Universul Juridic Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While the Member States of the European Union have similar legal systems, they also have many specific procedural differences. This is the reason why the Council Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts states the general provisions, mostly of substantive law nature, and offers the essential criteria to determine if a contractual term is unfair. It becomes the Member State's duty to transpose the Directive into the national legal framework and to regulate adequate and effective specific means to prevent the continued use of unfair terms in contracts concluded with consumers by sellers or suppliers. Romanian authorities didn't provide a minimum harmonization of the national law with the principles of the Council Directive 93/13/EEC by regulating accurate legal provisions to ensure that there are effective remedies in the light of article 7 of the Directive, by adapting the guidelines of the directive to the national legal framework and by amending the national rules that didn't comply with the principles of the Directive, they just took over the text of the Directive, with minor additions, and the list of the terms which may be regarded as unfair. Having at their disposal only the general criteria offered by the Directive, Romanian courts encountered many issues in the course of proceedings that determined some of them to turn to the Court of Justice of the European Union case law, while other courts made use of the preliminary ruling procedure found in article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to unify their practice. Identifying the problem is the first step in solving it. This study analyzes the difficulties that the national courts stumbled upon in applying European Union Law in the matter under discussion and the various ways they found to overcome them. The study can be a very useful instrument both for Romanian and Member States practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anuario Español de Derecho Internacional Privado is the property of Iprolex SL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Română de Drept European is the property of Wolters Kluwer Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU is in the active stage of implementation and covers the transformation of the entire economic and legal space of our state. Of particular interest is the civil law layer of legal relations as the broadest, in particular its aspect as changes in domestic regulation of consumer contracts in accordance with EU minimum standards with its further improvement. The aim of the article is to find and analyze ways of civil consumer regulation. Treaty in the EU and comparing them with Ukrainian legal realities, outlining the necessary changes that need to be made by the legislator in the future to accelerate full entry into the European space with its high level of legal protection of consumer relations, the material expression of which is consumer contracts. The article examines the key EU regulations relating to civil law regulation of consumer protection as a party to consumer agreements. A comparative legal analysis of EU norms and domestic civil legislation in this area in the context of the active development of European integration processes and the implementation of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. Further prospects are formulated in bringing the level of consumer protection in Ukraine closer to European standards. The author concludes that, despite a clear focus on the European course, domestic civil law is insufficiently improved in terms of regulating consumer contracts following the example of the EU. Thus, as of today, the legislation of Ukraine lacks both the concept of "consumer contract" and the consolidation of this category in the Civil Code of Ukraine along with other types of contracts. In addition, a clear action plan, which provided for the harmonization of domestic regulations with relevant EU documents, in particular with the main directives on the regulation of consumer contracts, was not fully implemented, so the issue of fully bringing Ukrainian legislation to EU minimum standards remains open, as well as its further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Court of Justice of the European Union has held that the exception to the right of withdrawal from contracts for the supply of goods made to the consumer's specifications is inherent to the very subject matter of such contracts, and therefore this exception can be invoked against the consumer regardless of whether or not the seller has begun the performance of the contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Română de Drept European is the property of Wolters Kluwer Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper gives a birds' eye view on the ALI Restatement on Consumer Contracts (proposal) and European, and partly also Member State, law of standard contract terms with respect to the environment where these standard contracts and assent to them appears to be particularly fleeting, namely in digital contexts. It does so, however, with a broader scope: It tries to explain why assent rules are not meaningless even in a world where most consumers and customers do not read standard contract terms, and it tries to explain how lessons could be deduced also for a meaningful and more differentiated fairness control. It argues that favouring intervention of control (ie information) intermediaries – such as consumer associations – is key and that the preservation of possibilities for negotiation should be maintained and valued. In these respects, the paper is inspired in good part by company law and capital market law dealing with parallel problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Iuridica Toruniensia is the property of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Faculty of Law & Administration and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While private law defines limits to the effects of contracts, there also are limits to what the law can achieve. This article reflects on the implications of the CJEU's judgment in the Spanish case of Gutierrez Naranjo, concerning the temporal effects of the nullity of unfair 'floor clauses" in mortgage contracts. To what extent can the powers of national highest courts be restricted by the CJEU infields that are governed by a combination of national rules of private law and EU law, and to what extent should socio-economic factors be taken into account in adjudication? In particular, attention is paid to questions of Kompetenz-Kompetenz, the importance of the socio-economic context of the case, the ideas of justice underlying the interaction of national private law and EU law, and the added value of transnational judicial dialogues for handling complex legal questions on the interface of different legal orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ECJ's July 2016 judgment in Verein fur Konsumenteninformation (VKI) v Amazon EU, a case which sits at the crossroads of consumer protection, data protection and private international law. VKI. an Austrian consumer protection association, brought a claim for an injunction to preclude the use of unfair terms in Amazon EU's standard terms and conditions (T & Cs); the Austrian Supreme Court ultimately sought a preliminary ruling from the ECJ for clarification on the applicable conflicts rules to determine the law that governs the consumer and data protection dimensions of the cross-border collective action. The article begins by setting out the facts of the case; it then situates the challenge to Amazon's T & Cs in the current contexts of consumer and data protection and analyses the key dimensions of consumer and data protection arising in the case. To conclude, the article offers reflections on the interplay of consumer enforcement, data protection and private international law in light of the ECJ's judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how legal frameworks shape the autonomous subject in a global economy. It makes salient the ways that different legal frameworks presume and enforce a particular subjectivity by positing certain behavioral expectations of various subjects. It does so through a focus on the underexplored rhetoric and implicit narratives of consumer contract law and transactional practice in the American and European regimes. By comparing the approach of the European Union to consumer contract, which posits the consumer as facing significant constraints on agency, to that in the United States, which elides functional limits of consumer knowledge and choice, this article highlights the dynamics of power implicit in how regional legal systems variously recognize parties' behavioral expectations or subjectivity. The article also demonstrates how the positing of subjectivity informs an individual's subjective experience and shapes the corporate subject in a global context. Through two case studies of the role of ancillary terms in American consumer contracts, the article shows how the legal framework enables more powerful actors to leverage the very narrative of agency and rhetoric of agreement as well as the consumer's posited subjectivity to manipulate a consumer's actual subjective experience and hinder choice and agency. Juxtaposing the American and European consumer as subjects, this article highlights the ways in which hierarchies of subjects may be created and, at the very least, how competing subjectivities come to the fore in the global market through contract law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case Froukje Faber v Autobedrijf Hazet Ochten BV on Heterogeneity and the Enforcement of Consumer Rights in the European Union (EU). Topics discsussed include Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) enforses consumer contracts in European courts, sales contracts lack conformity; and seller did not had access to the goods after delivery.

This study reviews the problem of indexation of consumer/mortgage credit in Iceland on the basis of the European consumer contract law acquis (Directives 93/13/EEC on abusive clauses and 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices) and case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). All EU consumer laws are incorporated into the Icelandic legal system via the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. A provisional assessment is made of a practice semi-allowed by the new Icelandic Act No. 33/2013 on consumer credit (incorporating Directive 2008/48/EC). The study argues that indexation of credit to inflation (ex-post)-as it has been practised in Iceland-fails to pass the European fairness test. The second claim is that national legislation may not rank above EU/EEA law on consumer/credit law. Indexation of financial obligations based on Act No. 38/2001 on interest-and applied both by private/public financial institutions-cannot escape the requirements of legality and fairness under EU/EEA law in so far as the domestic rules pursue objectives related to consumer protection already harmonized at EU/EEA level and fail to do a fair balancing of the justified interests of all contracting parties. The opposite solution would deprive European law of its effectiveness and consumers of their substantive rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initially, the concept of unfair terms characterized only the contracts concluded between consumers and professionals. Currently, the concept is also incident in other types of contracts. This study only concerns the concept of unfair terms applicable to contracts concluded between consumers and professionals. Main regulations applicable are represented by Law no. 193/2000 on unfair terms in contracts concluded between professionals and consumers and Directive 93/13 / EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts (interpreted by the ECJ). Scientific work is proposed to set up the concept of unfair terms. In order to do so, several steps are to be followed:. 1. determining the scope (contracts on the sale of goods or services concluded between professionals and consumers). 2. analysis of unfair terms defining features: (a) the absence of negotiation between the contracting parties, (b) the presence of a significant imbalance between the rights and obligations of the parties, to the detriment of consumers and (c) the breach of good faith. 3. the identification of the incident sanctions. 4. the highlighting of some procedural features (especially in terms of the effects of court decisions finding the unfairness of a contractual term). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last five years the CJEU had to decide on more than 50 preliminary references in the area of consumer contract law. As a consequence there are far more than 100 decisions available which represent the increasingly concrete basis for a European contract law. Particularly striking is the rising number of questions referred to the CJEU by the new Member States. With regard to quantity, two fields stand out: legal conflicts about financial services of all kinds and about passenger rights. Since the CJEU has developed independent dogmatics for some areas of contract law, it might be necessary to rethink legal categories on the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although one third of European citizens depend on rental housing, its legal regulation in residential tenancy law constitutes a nearly blank space in comparative and European Union law. This is due to its national character, its perceived political nature and its embeddedness in widely diverging national housing policies. At the same time, however, EU law and policies from other fields do affect tenancy law significantly, albeit indirectly and with little visibility. The present contribution tries in a first step to take stock of these influences, which range from social policy, competition law, consumer and contract law, conflict of laws, anti-discrimination and environmental law to the European Convention of Human Rights. On this basis, the potential for a European contribution to the field is examined in a second step. As regards European instruments, this contribution advises against legal harmonisation but recommends the extension of the existing open method of coordination mechanism in social policy to tenancy law. At the substantive level, a legal principle of 'socio-economic balance' is sketched out. This means that national legislators, regulators and judges should design viable compromise solutions taking into account party interests as well as macroeconomic and social criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet has become a pervasive and established part of modern life and along with it legal frameworks for establishment and enforcement of consumer contracts have and continue to develop. Regulation and enforcement of internet contracts varies geographically. Generally, there are two primary legal approaches to internet contract enforcement: The United States model that relies on basic notice requirements to establish and enforce terms; and the European Union model that focuses on fundamental fairness in transactions between businesses and consumers. This paper examines common issues surrounding internet contracts and their application. The differences in the United States and European Union philosophy and approach to internet contracts are illustrated and compared. Finally, the potential for development of a unified legal framework for internet contracts is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]