In light of the implementation in the EU Member States of Directive 2011/83/ EU on Consumer Rights, this book – originating from the First Ferrara Forum on European Consumer and Contract Law – offers an innovative and systematic analysis of the new rules on consumer sales contracts in 10 EU Member States, bringing together contributions by distinguished scholars from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Following an introduction containing comparative remarks on aspects of the implementation process and its outcome in the EU Member States, the authors of the national reports focus especially on the meaning and scope of application of the implementing provisions of the Consumer Rights Directive, on their interplay with the existing rules on consumer contracts, and on the relationship between the national ‘special’ rules on consumer sales and the general domestic rules on sales contracts. Furthermore, each contribution looks ahead, assessing the next steps for European sales law and its possible interaction with the national regulation of consumer sales. In pursuit of this goal, each contribution also includes a final section containing an analysis of the influence of the withdrawn draft Common European Sales Law (CESL) on the development of Member States’ and European sales law.

This approach and the contents of the book are all the more important following the release by the European Commission on 9 December 2015 of three legislative proposals under its Digital Single Market Strategy: the Proposal for a Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content, the Proposal for a Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the online and other distance sale of goods, and the Proposal for a Regulation on ensuring the cross-border portability of online content services in the internal market.

The book therefore addresses academics, practitioners and members of the European institutions, who have the task of applying and shaping new European consumer and contract law.

Giovanni De Cristofaro and Alberto De Franceschi

Ferrara, May 2016

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND CONTRACT LAW

Digital technology has significantly changed the balance in society and economic relationships, offering new opportunities for innovative business models. This raises challenging questions affecting several aspects of the law. Scholars, practitioners, policy-makers and legislators are therefore involved in an ongoing debate and need to find appropriate answers in order to react adequately to the challenges of the digital revolution. This book aims to chart, analyse and clarify some of the main questions and issues.

For a functioning market economy, private law has to provide a general framework and efficient tools. The realisation of a connected Digital Single Market is one of the ten priorities of the European Commission, which aims to react appropriately to the challenges of the digital revolution in order to use this opportunity for economic growth. In the framework of its Digital Single Market Strategy, the European Commission announced a set of measures aiming to create better access to digital goods and services across Europe for both consumers and businesses, underlining that the absence of consistent EU-wide criteria creates barriers to entrance, hinders competition and reduces predictability for investors throughout Europe.

The harmonisation of European private law is a challenge of increasing significance and has inspired important developments, as shown for example by the European Commission's release, on 9 December 2015, of three legislative proposals as a part of its ‘Digital Single Market Strategy’: the Proposal for a Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content, the Proposal for a Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the online and other distance sales of goods, and the Proposal for a Regulation on ensuring the cross-border portability of online content services in the internal market. Since then, on 27 April 2016, EU Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data has been adopted.

The EU is committed to making the single market fit for the digital age. This far-reaching political strategy has many facets. One consists in providing the Digital Single Market with a suitable legal infrastructure. A comprehensive and well-structured body of rules is required to enhance the protection of consumers and data subjects, while ensuring businesses the legal certainty they need to invest in this field and support growth and innovation.

The essays collected in this book, based on a series of seminars hosted by the Department of Law of the University of Ferrara between March and May 2016, address the impact of digital technology on private law within the EU. The papers examine a variety of topics, including the EU approach to personal information (namely as a tradeable commodity and as the object of a fundamental right for the individuals concerned), the protection of consumers’ and users’ rights and the issues surrounding the emergence of the so called platform economy.

The analysis, while being concerned to a large extent with contract law issues, extends to data protection and copyright law. Private international law issues are equally considered.

As the editor of this collection, I wish to thank the authors for their enthusiastic participation in this project.

A special thank also goes to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, whose financial support has been crucial to the organisation of the seminars and the publication of this volume.