Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

The Reluctant Lawmaker. The European Union And The Regulation Of Gambling Between The Principle Of Free Circulation Of Services And Member States Prerogatives, Nadia Coggiola Ph.D

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

Although the European Union legislator is generally very keen to rely primarily and sometimes even exclusively on economic considerations, and therefore to generally protect consumers’ interests, this attitude is largely different when gambling issues are a stake.

In fact, even if it is generally undisputed, also by the same European Union legislator, that authorized gambling contracts are to be considered as consumers’ contracts, when facing the regulation of gambling contracts, the European Union often restrains from using all of its legislative powers.

As a consequence, the European legislation on consumer’s contracts generally explicitly exclude from its application gambling contracts, …

Beyond Section 230 Liability For Facebook, Nancy S. Kim

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In October 2021, a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, publicly revealed that the company's internal research documented harms that its products caused some of its users. The company’s response was sadly predictable. It questioned the reliability of Haugen’s testimony, asserted its commitment to doing the right thing, and then diverted the public’s attention by changing its name to Meta. The company’s deny-and-distract tactics were, by now, all too familiar and provided few answers.

More than any other platform company, Facebook has found itself at the center of controversy. Its advertisement-supported business model relies upon user engagement which means that …

The New Bailments, Danielle D’Onfro

Washington Law Review

The rise of cloud computing has dramatically changed how consumers and firms store their belongings. Property that owners once managed directly now exists primarily on infrastructure maintained by intermediaries. Consumers entrust their photos to Apple instead of scrapbooks; businesses put their documents on Amazon’s servers instead of in file cabinets; seemingly everything runs in the cloud. Were these belongings tangible, the relationship between owner and intermediary would be governed by the common-law doctrine of bailment. Bailments are mandatory relationships formed when one party entrusts their property to another. Within this relationship, the bailees owe the bailors a duty of care …

Consumer Protection In Ecommerce: A Case Study Of Egypt, Heba Habib

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines electronic contract regulation in the context of business-to-consumer transactions. The technological advancement and cross-border nature of e-commerce have posed significant challenges to the Egyptian legal framework highlighting the limitations of general commercial contract rules with regards to electronic contracts. This thesis argues that access to the courts is hindered by restrictive terms in the electronic contracts over which the Egyptian law has no jurisdictional power. Accordingly, private institutions set the rules in the e-contracts and enforce them through private methods leaving no room for state intervention to ensure the protection of consumers. Hence, the application of national …

Bad Foundation: Washington's Lack Of Homeowner Rights, Brendan Williams

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Online Dispute Resolution, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This chapter was prepared from a presentation given by the author at the 2019 Summer School in Transnational Commercial Law & Technology, jointly sponsored by the University of Verona School of Law and the Center for International Legal Education (CILE) of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In the paper, I review online dispute resolution (ODR) by considering the following five questions, which I believe help to develop a better understanding of both the concept and the legal framework surrounding it:

A. What is ODR?

B. Who does ODR?

C. What is the legal framework for ODR?

D. What …

"I'M Just Some Guy": Positing And Leveraging Legal Subjects In Consumer Contracts And The Global Market, Tal Kastner

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

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 …

Ohio's Newest Consumer Protection: The Prepaid Entertainment Contract Act, Sandra S. Braden

Akron Law Review

The Prepaid Entertainment Contract Act is not complex in its drafting and should be readily understandable by the consumer in informing him of his rights under a future service contract. There are, however, several aspects of PECA which will require clarification. First, the definition of "first service" will present problems in construction if a practical application of the Act is to be realized. Second, the extent to which a violation of this Act constitutes a per se deceptive act under the Consumer Sales Practices Act may require interpretation.' Third, a proposed Trade Regulation Rule by the Federal Trade Commission concerning …

“Whimsy Little Contracts” With Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis Of Consumer Understanding Of Arbitration Agreements, Jeff Sovern

Jeff Sovern

Arbitration clauses have become ubiquitous in consumer contracts. These arbitration clauses require consumers to waive the constitutional right to a civil jury, access to court, and, increasingly, the procedural remedy of class representation. Because those rights cannot be divested without consent, the validity of arbitration agreements rests on the premise of consent. Consumers who do not want to arbitrate or waive their class rights can simply decline to purchase the products or services covered by an arbitration agreement. But the premise of consent is undermined if consumers do not understand the effect on their procedural rights of clicking a box …

Consumer Protection, Hijacking And The Concepcion Cases, Brandy G. Robinson

Brandy G Robinson

Since its ruling, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion has been the subject of scrutiny among many people in both the business and legal industries. The ruling’s significance denotes class arbitration is no longer a viable option in certain types of litigation matters. Yet, courts continue to defy this ruling. Post-Concepcion cases help in exploring why there is such a discord and confusion on whether class arbitration or any class alternative dispute resolution method are allowable.This article briefly examines AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and post-Concepcion cases and what remains for consumers and consumer law attorneys after Concepcion. The article also provides …

A Psychological Account Of Consent To Fine Print, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

The moral and social norms that bear on contracts of adhesion suggest a deep ambivalence. Contracts are perceived as serious moral obligations, and yet they must be taken lightly or everyday commerce would be impossible. Most people see consent to boilerplate as less meaningful than consent to negotiated terms, but they nonetheless would hold consumers strictly liable for both. This Essay aims to unpack the beliefs, preferences, assumptions, and biases that constitute our assessments of assent to boilerplate. Research suggests that misgivings about procedural defects in consumer contracting weigh heavily on judgments of contract formation, but play almost no role …

Legal Uncertainty And Aberrant Contracts: The Choice Of Law Clause, William J. Woodward Jr.

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Legal uncertainty about the applicability of local consumer protection can destroy a consumer’s claim or defense within the consumer arbitration environment. What is worse, because the consumer arbitration system cannot accommodate either legal complexity or legal uncertainty, the tendency will be to resolve cases in the way the consumer’s form contract dictates, that is, in favor of the drafter. To demonstrate this effect and advocate statutory change, this article focuses on fee-shifting statutes in California and several other states. These statutes convert very common one-way fee-shifting terms (consumer pays business’s attorneys fees if business wins but not the other way …

Situational Duress And The Aberrance Of Electronic Contracts, Nancy S. Kim

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explains how the aberrant nature of electronic contracts has unique implications, which contract law should recognize. Companies, taking advantage of these unique implications, may use electronic contracts in an unfair and coercive manner, which is why this article proposes expanding the definition of duress to include “situational duress.” Situational duress would not encompass all electronic contracting scenarios, but would be limited to situations where (1) a drafting company uses an electronic contract to block consumer access to a product or service; (2) the consumer has a “vested interest” in that product or service; and (3) the consumer accepts …

Are You Free To Contract Away Your Right To Bring A Negligence Claim?, Scott J. Burnham

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explores the enforceability of the exculpatory clause—a contract term in which one party agrees to give up the right to bring a negligence claim against the other party. A spectrum of views on whether a contract containing such a clause is aberrant or not is presented and analyzed, followed by the author’s view of the rubric by which the enforceability of the clause should be measured. The article concludes by deconstructing one contract in which the clause was found.

Sea Changes In Consumer Financial Protection: Stronger Agency And Stronger Laws, Dee Pridgen

Dee Pridgen

This article tracks the rising influence of behavioral economics as a guiding force in consumer protection. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, formed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, is a new and stronger agency for consumers. Two pieces of legislation, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act (Title XIV of Dodd-Frank), and the Credit Card Accountability , Responsibility and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act) of 2009, are stronger laws ensuring the safety of consumer financial products. This article examines the new agency and the new laws, explains how they differ from the prior governmental …

Freedom Of Contract In An Augmented Reality: The Case Of Consumer Contracts, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

This Article argues that freedom of contract will take on different meaning in a world in which new technology makes information about places, goods, people, firms, and contract terms available to contracting parties anywhere, at any time. In particular, our increasingly "augmented reality" calls into question leading justifications for distrusting consumer contracts and strengthens traditional understandings of freedom of contract. This is largely a descriptive and predictive argument: This Article aims to introduce contract law to these technologies and consider their most likely effects. It certainly has normative implications, however. Given that the vast majority of consumer contracting occurs in …

The Rome I Regulation Rules On Party Autonomy For Choice Of Law: A U.S. Perspective, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This chapter was presented at a conference in Dublin on the (then) new Rome I Regulation of the European Union in the fall of 2009. It contrasts the Rome I rules on party autonomy with those in the United States. In particular, it considers the rules in the Rome I Regulation that ostensibly protect consumers by discouraging party agreement on a pre-dispute basis to the law governing a consumer contract. These rules are compared with the absence of private international law restrictions on choice of forum and choice of law in the United States, even in consumer contracts. The result …

Consumer Harm Acts? An Economic Analysis Of Private Actions Under State Consumer Protection Acts, Henry N. Butler, Jason S. Johnston

Faculty Working Papers

State Consumer Protection Acts (CPAs) were adopted in the 1960s and 1970s to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices that would not be redressed but for the existence of the acts. In this sense, CPAs were designed to fill existing gaps in market, legal and regulatory protections of consumers. CPAs were designed to solve two simple economic problems: 1) individual consumers often do not have the incentive or means to pursue individual claims against mass marketers who engage in unfair and deceptive practices; and, 2) because of the difficulty of establishing elements of either common law fraud or breach …

Finding The Contract In Contracts For Law, Forum, And Arbitration, William John Woodward

ExpressO

Contract provisions specifying the law or forum (either judicial or arbitration) have begun appearing in litigated cases, as businesses have pressed many courts for their enforcement against consumers. In at least some of the cases, enforcement of a choice of law provision results in the displacement of the consumer’s home state protection by the lesser consumer protection of the State of the form drafter’s choosing. This phenomenon raises serious problems of federalism and local control of consumer protection. But while considerable scholarly attention has been lavished on so-called “mandatory arbitration” in this context, much less has attempted to improve our …

Show Me The Money?: Washington Adopts The Cost Prohibitive Defense To Arbitration Clauses In Consumer Contracts, Merryn B. Debenedetti

Seattle University Law Review

The scope of this Note focuses on whether the courts have adequately corrected the substantive failures of mandatory arbitration agreements when they permit consumers to prove prohibitive costs. Part II of this Note explores the origin and history behind the adoption of the FAA and the legislative desire to place parties of equal bargaining power in a position to arbitrate. Part III examines the acceptance of this defense in other jurisdictions. Part IV considers the Mendez case and analyzes Washington's newly adopted approach to invalidate mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts. Part V illustrates the appropriateness of this defense and …