Category Archives: European Private Law
‘Contract, Welfare and Radical Democracy. Viable Promise or Wishful Thinking?’
The interplay between the law of contract, the welfare state, and the quality of democracy has always been at the core of modern European legal systems. From a historical perspective, it is easy to observe that – well before the rise of European Private Law (EPL) and well beyond the narrow link between contract and […]
Margoni and Strowel, ‘Contractual Freedom and Fairness in EU Data Sharing Agreements’
ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes the evolving landscape of EU data-sharing agreements, particularly focusing on the balance between contractual freedom and fairness in the context of non-personal data. The discussion highlights the complexities introduced by recent EU legislation, such as the Data Act, Data Governance Act, and Open Data Directive, which collectively aim to regulate data […]
Jacques and Flynn, ‘Protecting Human Creativity in AI-Generated Music with the Introduction of an AI-Royalty Fund’
ABSTRACT Artificial Intelligence (AI) is posited to revolutionise the creative industries, prompting global calls for legislative intervention to ensure human creativity remain at the centre of the copyright system. As AI systems gain prowess in analysing and generating content, they promise new levels of creativity and innovation at accelerated pace and reduced costs compared to […]
Tibor Tajti (Thaythy), ‘The efficient enforcement challenge of secured transactions law reforms in civil law systems – self-help repossession, strict foreclosure, and other methods for the acceleration of enforcement of security interests’
ABSTRACT Although the forging of an efficient system for enforcement of security interest is one of the central expectations of secured transaction law reforms in civil law systems, the results hardly give reason for satisfaction. As the reforms tend to be supported and influenced by various international organizations’ projects (especially the World Bank, the European […]
‘For tort claims (un)bearable passage of time’
Since the turn of the century the Dutch Supreme court delivers yearly two or three compelling decisions regarding the rules on prescription of tort claims. Prescription is the legal defence that bars civil actions on a claim after the expiry of a certain amount of time. Due to these ongoing developments in case law the […]
Gomez-Pomar and Beldowski, ‘Consumer Mortgage Loan Agreements in Foreign Currencies – Does One Solution Fit all?’
ABSTRACT Consumer protection in contracts concluded with credit institutions has received considerable attention from the national courts of various European countries in recent years. Unsurprisingly, the matter peaked after the wake of the global crisis of 2008 when consumers struggled with loan repayments in general. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has […]
Vittorio Bachelet, ‘“Pay-or-Consent” and Emerging Trends in Digital Contract Law’
ABSTRACT Pay-or-consent (‘Want to subscribe or continue using our Products for free with ads?’) is the dilemma facing Facebook and Instagram users since November 2023. This innovation primarily follows the Court of Justice’s strict interpretation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Meta v Bundeskartellamt, which ruled on several controversial issues of the data […]
Michele Ciancimino, ‘Private Law and Consumer Protection Paradigms facing (Digital) “Addictions”: A Starting Point for Reflection’
ABSTRACT The increasing area of addictive design of digital services, often related to the ‘gamification’, or ‘gamblification’, of services has given law scholars cause for reflection. How could private law and consumer protection tame addictions that are linked to contractual agreements? The essay aims to introduce this issue in order to start a debate on […]
Geoffrey Vos, ‘AI and the GDPR’
INTRODUCTION The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act began entering into force on 1 August 2024. It will take some 2-3 years to come fully into operation. The Council of Europe’s Treaty on AI and human rights, democracy and the rule of law was opened for signature on 5 September 2024 by European Justice Ministers in Vilnius. […]
Taner Kuru, ‘Lawfulness of the mass processing of publicly accessible online data to train large language models’
INTRODUCTION In early 2020, the New York Times reported that ‘a little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images’. It was revealed that this start-up, Clearview AI, was operating a facial recognition app that could find the public photos of individuals when a picture of them is uploaded on […]