Access To Justice In Transnational B2c E Commerce

This book identifies institutional mechanisms that can be used to promote consumer confidence in direct online sales with businesses (B2C e-commerce). It argues that enhancing the access to justice in a multidimensional sense can potentially offer an effective means of boosting consumer confidence. It introduces a conceptual framework for a multidimensional approach to access to justice in the context of consumer protection, describing the various reasonable criteria needed to satisfy consumer demands in B2C e-commerce. The framework, which reflects all essential aspects of consumers’ expectations when they engage in online transactions, provides a benchmark for the evaluation of various consumer protection mechanisms. Based on an analysis of different mechanisms and using the framework’s criteria, the practice of private ordering, which does not rely on the creation of rules of law but rather on the use of technology as a solution, appears to offer a meaningful way to enhance access to justice in B2C e-commerce. However, though private ordering holds considerable potential, certain weaknesses still need to be eliminated. This book demonstrates how private ordering can be successfully implemented with the help of an intermediary, a neutral third party that plays an integral part in the collaborative task of facilitating various aspects of private ordering, thus helping to limit the risks of failure and ensuring a fairer market setting. In order to move forward, it argues that the state, with its wealth of material resources and incentive options, is the institution best suited to acting as an intermediary in facilitating private ordering. This promising proposal can improve consumer protection, which will in turn boost consumer confidence.​

This report offers an empirical tool to help planners, statisticians, policy makers and advocates understand people's everyday legal problems and experience with the justice system. It sets out a framework for the conceptualisation, implementation and analysis of legal needs surveys and is ...

How do ordinary people access justice? This book offers a novel socio-legal approach to access to justice, alternative dispute resolution, vulnerability and energy poverty. It poses an access to justice challenge and rethinks it through a lens that accommodates all affected people, especially those who are currently falling through the system. It raises broader questions about alternative dispute resolution, the need for reform to include more collective approaches, a stronger recognition of the needs of vulnerable people, and a stronger emphasis on delivering social justice. The authors use energy poverty as a site of vulnerability and examine the barriers to justice facing this excluded group. The book assembles the findings of an interdisciplinary research project studying access to justice and its barriers in the UK, Italy, France, Bulgaria and Spain (Catalonia). In-depth interviews with regulators, ombuds, energy companies, third-sector organisations and vulnerable people provide a rich dataset through which to understand the phenomenon. The book provides theoretical and empirical insights which shed new light on these issues and sets out new directions of inquiry for research, policy and practice. It will be of interest to researchers, students and policymakers working on access to justice, consumer vulnerability, energy poverty, and the complex intersection between these fields. The book includes contributions by Cosmo Graham (UK), Sarah Supino and Benedetta Voltaggio (Italy), Marine Cornelis (France), Anais Varo and Enric Bartlett (Catalonia) and Teodora Peneva (Bulgaria).

In the past two decades, research on electronic commerce and platforms has thrived. Tremendous academic research has been conducted on this specific concept. Over the last decade, with the rise of applications and mobile technology, that stream of research has extended to the collaborative economy, more colloquially known as the sharing economy. The commonality between e-commerce and collaborative consumption being that they both occur online and rely predominantly on platforms. The Handbook of Research on the Platform Economy and the Evolution of E-Commerce is a comprehensive reference book offering a holistic perspective of the platform economy by connecting the e-commerce and collaborative economy streams into a common framework. As such, this integrated perspective offers a clearer understanding of the key trends in research and in managerial action, as well as an agenda for future studies and practice. This handbook emphasizes how the digital transition will create an increased merging between physical and digital activities, as well as the challenges and opportunities pertaining to this trend. Covering topics including sharing economy, Marketing 4.0, and digital applications, this book is essential for marketers, managers, executives, students, researchers, and academicians.

In recent decades, the rise in cross-border law violations has harmed numerous victims around the globe. The damages are often dispersed and low-level. As a result, the private enforcement gap has deepened and collective redress represents an interesting procedural instrument that is able to provide effective access to justice. This book analyses thoroughly the dominant collective redress models adopted in the EU. Data from 13 Member States has been catalogued and categorised. The research mainly focuses on the consumer law field but frequent references to financial and data protection-related cases are made. The dominant collective redress models are then studied from a private international law perspective. In particular, the book highlights the current mismatch between collective redress on the one hand, and rules on international jurisdiction on the other. Additionally, it notes that barriers to cross-border litigation remain significant for victims and their representatives. The unprecedented empirical study included in this book confirms that statement. Observing that EU measures have not satisfactorily lowered those barriers, the author proposes the creation of a new head of jurisdiction for cases of international collective redress. This book will be of interest to private international law scholars, researchers, students, legal practitioners, judges and policy-makers. It is a reference point for those with an interest in cross-border collective redress in particular, and private international law in general.

This book elaborates and updates a staff exchange that took place in 2001 among legal scholars from the Universities of Oxford and Leiden. Its insights represent some of the best-informed thinking on the legal aspects of this all-pervasive feature of contemporary society.

This book discusses how technological innovations have affected the resolution of disputes arising from electronic commerce in the European Union, UK and China. Online dispute resolution (ODR) is a form of alternative dispute resolution in which information technology is used to establish a process that is more effective and conducive to resolving the specific types of dispute for which it was created. This book focuses on out-of-court ODR and the resolution of disputes in the field of electronic commerce. It explores the potential of ODR in this specific e-commerce context and investigates whether the current use of ODR is in line with the principles of access to justice and procedural fairness. Moreover, it examines the major concerns surrounding the development of ODR, e.g. the extent to which electronic ADR agreements are recognized by national courts in cross-border e-commerce transactions, how procedural justice is ensured in ODR proceedings, and whether ODR outcomes can be effectively enforced. To this end, the book assesses the current and potential role of ODR in resolving e-commerce disputes, identifies the legal framework for and legal barriers to the development of ODR, and makes recommendations as to the direction in which practice and the current legal framework should evolve. In closing, the book draws on the latest legislation in the field of e-commerce law and dispute resolution in order to make recommendations for future ODR design, such as the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation on Promoting Fairness and Transparency for Business Users of Online Intermediation Services (2019) and the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2018), which provide the legal basis for ODR’s future development.

This book examines how consumers are protected on the online marketplace in the context of ASEAN countries. While many sectors have been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, e-retailing is one of the booming sectors during this period. Actually, the e-retailing sector was already booming even before the global pandemic. Although e-retailing offers many opportunities for businesses and consumers, there are several issues associated with e-consumer protection. This book examines how consumers are protected on the online marketplace in the context of ASEAN countries. Specifically, this project: (i) Discusses the six issues of e-consumer protection (e.g., information about transaction, product quality, privacy, security, redress, and jurisdiction); (ii) Examines the policy/governance approach adopted by different sectors to address the issues of e-consumer protection; and (iii) Proposes a multi-sector governance framework for e-consumer protection. Three short case studies on Lazada in Singapore, Shopee in Vietnam, and Zalora in Malaysia are also included to illustrate how well-known e-retailers protect their e-customers. Overall, this book is interdisciplinary, including research on consumer protection, governance, management, and policy/regulation. It provides sources of information and knowledge which focus on both theoretical and practical aspects of e-consumer protection in ASEAN countries. Also, the roles from different sectors are examined to produce comprehensive findings and analysis of the governance process.