The seminar was delivered by Felix Maultzsch (Professor of Private Law, Civil Procedure, Private International Law, and Comparative Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main).

The webinar analysed the legal developments that can be observed in EU law on consumer contracts in an increasingly digitalised environment. It drew on the example of sale of goods, ie a type of contract that existed and exists both before and after the flourishment of digitalisation, where changes in paradigms are seen most clearly. The main theses of the speaker was that there is no formal separate set of law for cross-border online sales in the European context but rather that sales law in general is heavily influenced by a new paradigm of online sales. In this paradigm, the primary aim is no longer to protect individual autonomy and to level out parties’ interests but to protect and facilitate markets.

The shift towards a market paradigm is not limited to contract law in a narrow sense but extends to regulatory techniques in private international law, law enforcement, and developments in private contractual practice. The discussion of the principle of market orientation covered, inter alia, conflict of laws, means of standardising and boosting consumption in substantive EU sales law, and the transformation of contractual relations in the platform economy.

More details are available here.