Economic and Competition Law.

Electronic commerce has led to a disruption in the economy, creating opportunities but also threats for businesses, consumers and workers. E-commerce and platform economy have made services, goods and work available to consumers with only one click and allows them to optimize the use of their underused assets. Counterpart hereof is that traditional business models and are at risk because of the new competitors. This doesn`t only entail a risk for companies, but also for employees. Traditional market participants and doctrine mainly look at regulation as a tool to eliminate the threats for traditional businesses and workers. The envisaged research however aims to optimize the opportunities of contract law to provide a level playing field, with effective protection of protectable interests. Electronic commerce has revealed weaknesses in the contract law framework governing the underlying relations, while at the same time providing opportunities for a more effective protection and contract designs that can enhance (social, economic and ecological) sustainability. One of the major threats is that these new work and consumption relations would not enjoy an equivalent protection to that in case of traditional consumer and labor contracts. This is not only disadvantageous for these vulnerable market participants, but also for traditional companies. The non-applicability of such mandatory rules would provide the new competitors with an unsolicited competitive advantage, hence standing in the way of a level playing field. Another threat for traditional companies is the fact that electronic commerce has introduced new contract chains, without contract law governing the other relations necessarily adapting to them. This might trigger undesirable liability exposures. Electronic commerce also provides many opportunities for private law and contracts alike. First of all, electronic communication allows to communicate to vulnerable market actors in a more effective way about their rights. This allows to increase the effectiveness of said protective rules. Second, the platformisation of the economy made peers with similar needs more accessible. This triggered a revival of operational research on sharing economy as a means allowing businesses and consumers alike to optimize welfare through cooperation. Insofar also the legal transaction costs can be reduced, law could here in fact be a catalyst of (social, ecological and economic) more sustainable contracts. The project envisages to make proposals to eliminate the threats of electronic commerce in private law by filling the gaps that were created by innovation, to provide an equivalent protection of vulnerable market participants in similar situations and to align contract law in contract chains, eliminating unintended liability exposures. At the same time, it aims to make effective use of the opportunities provided by electronic commerce to make such protection more effective and to make trade more sustainable. Here the research looks in two directions: first, the possibilities of electronic contracting for a more effective protection through enhanced legal literacy. Second, the design of a legal infrastructure for horizontal cooperation between different stakeholders, allowing for more sustainable business models. With this, the project aims to repair private law`s role as a catalyst for business. In order to allow for the private law analysis and design of (inter)stakeholder-relationships, this project will combine labor law, consumer law and commercial contracts law (including insurance law). Given my research background, the focus of this project lies with the retail, mobility and logistics sector. The contract chain approach requires however a holistic analysis which makes the results also to a large extent transferable to other fields of the industry.

Keywords:ECONOMIC LAW, COMPETITION LAW

Disciplines:Civil law, Comparative law, Legal practice, lawyering and the legal profession, Liability law