The digital economy is increasingly shaped by online platforms offering marketplaces where customers can buy goods or services (eg Airbnb, Uber, Amazon Marketplace). The existing regulatory framework at EU level of seems to be rather outdated with respect to the dynamics caused by the rise of online intermediary platforms.
Recently the “Research Group on the Law of Digital Services” has presented a Discussion Draft of a Directive on Online Intermediary Platforms. Moreover, the European Law Institute (ELI) has set up a project to elaborate Model Rules on Online Intermediary Platforms ( more info).
The purpose of the conference, which is jointly organised by the reporters of the ELI project (Christoph Busch, Gerhard Dannemann, Hans Schulte-Nölke, Aneta Wiewiórowska-Domagalska, Fryderyk Zoll) to kick off the ELI project group by analysing the need for adjusting EU consumer and contract law, private international law, data protection law and IP law with a view to the platform economy.
The Discussion Draft prepared by the „Research Group on the Law of Digital Services“ will form a starting point for this project. Based on the analysis of the Discussion Draft, a working plan for drafting the ELI model rules will be elaborated. Key issues to be addressed are the duties and obligations of the platform operator as well as criteria for dermining under which conditions the platform operator is liable for a non-performance by the supplier. Moreover, the basic requirements for transparency and fairness of online reputation systems (e.g. ratings and reviews) will be considered.
The conference is organised for the European Law Institute by the Jagiellonian University together with the University of Osnabrück as a part of the project “Made in Europe – European Legal Standards of Quality for Services on the Global Competitive Market” and is co-funded from funds of the Polish National Centre of Science (Project No.UMO-2012/04/A/HS5/00709).
Conference Programme (PDF, 191 kB)
