Volume 14, Issue 3

The contractual responsibility of online platform operators has been subject to an intensive debate in the recent past. While the operators of transaction platforms usually seek the role of mere intermediaries without considerable liability for the proper performance of the main contracts, there is increasing support for extending their responsibility. The ‘Discussion Draft of a Directive on Online Intermediary Platforms’, published by a group of European scholars in 2016, can be seen as an important landmark in this debate. The following article will analyse the provisions of this draft on the platform operators’ liability towards the users of the platform. It shall be argued that strict transparency requirements on the role of the platform operators are to be welcomed but that other proposals for a tightened liability based on the idea of economic influence do not accord with established contractual principles which should hold true for the platform economy as well.

Is the law of the jungle the guiding principle with respect to choice of law clauses in international contracts between businesses (b2b contract)? Does a choice of law imply the rule of the strongest party? These and other questions are discussed in the light of 18 exploratory qualitative interviews with Dutch senior practising lawyers (advocaten). Lawyers were interviewed, since it is often presumed that they play an important role with respect to a choice of law in the pre-contractual phase. However, the perception of lawyers with respect to a choice of law is underresearched. The interview findings are discussed and compared to the data concerning a choice of law in the context of the debates about a common European contract law, regulatory competition, self-enforcing contracts and the legal origin theory. Finally, questions for future research are formulated. For instance, in the empirical research conducted sofar, no specific attention has been paid to small and medium sized businesses. Had they been considered, the outcome could have been different. The same may be said with respect to the different business sectors and the countries where the companies are established.

This article provides an overview of cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning contract law. The present issue covers the period between mid-January 2018 and mid-July 2018.