In this article we argue that a rights oriented approach alone cannot achieve effective consumer empowerment. A critical point that is often overlooked in the Commission’s striving to create and to fine-tune consumer rights, is that these rights do not necessarily coincide with consumer needs....

Attorneys face mixed messages regarding consumer arbitration: Mixed professional responsibility rules; mixed legal enforcement; mixed messages from commentators and policymakers; mixed evidence regarding efficiency, cost-savings and fairness. It is therefore doubtful that attorneys would face...

Eco-labels, certifications, and seals of approval serve a variety of functions, including communicating to businesses and consumers the environmental attributes of a particular product or the dangers that product may pose. Eco-labels have the potential to improve environmental outcomes in a...

Do you ask for contract or purchase terms prior to completing your everyday purchases? Do you first read the pizza box before paying the pizza delivery guy or gal? Typical consumers do not ask for or read their contracts prepurchase, and companies have become accustomed to burying purchase terms...

In this article the author outlines some difficulties facing the cyber-shopper. These include the practical difficulties of enforcement and redress which arise when a cyber-shopper purchases a defective product from an overseas supplier, or when misleading information is placed on the internet...

This article considers the situation where a family home has been purchased in joint names, without any express declaration of the beneficial interests. The courts have interpreted the applicable equitable doctrines so as to make it very difficult for a defendant to resist a claim by his or her...

Beginning in the 1960s, state legislatures across the country enacted consumer protection acts that “were originally designed to supplement the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) mission of protecting consumers from ‘unfair or deceptive acts or practices’ and are referred to as...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a current buzzword. It describes the network of physical devices of any kind (cars, TV sets, watches, garments, food packaging, etc.), which are embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity to enable them (i) to collect and exchange data...

This text was published as Weekend Edition of EU Law Live. It explains what the Consumer Welfare Hypothesis can do for legal scholars, especially (but not only) in the European Union:1 offer two new responses to arguments of this kind: from an economic point of view, this...