School of Law

Event time: 11:00-12:00

Title: Conceptualising a New Approach to Consumer Protection in the Online Space: Towards an Interlegal Realignment?

Abstract

The threats to consumer protection in the online space are so potent that addressing them with a traditional consumer law approach approximates to an exercise in self-delusion. While consumers are increasingly seen as “predictably irrational,” online firms have a corresponding near total insight into consumers’ behaviour via their harvesting of consumer data. The asymmetry between consumer vulnerability and the online behemoths’ market power could not be greater. To more fully address consumer protection, the broader choreography across an interlegal space composed of consumer and competition law, data protection and sectoral regulation needs to be examined. The new approach requires abandoning ideas of “average” consumers, while focusing on a more stringent scrutiny of market power and firms’ capacity to leverage that power. In addition, an interlegal cross-referencing of norms (identifying market power as a criterion for unfair practices and questioning whether abuses of dominance automatically violate Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (EU)/Digital Markets, Competition, Consumers’ Act, 2024 (UK) and a presumption in favour of a high standard of consumer protection is required. Meanwhile, given re-regulation in the EU and deregulation in the US we must anticipate global policy divergence; a divergence which catches the UK, post-Brexit, attempting to play it both ways.

Event time: 11:00-12:00

Title: “Can Terms Implied By Law be Excluded? A Critical Examination”

Abstract: In 2001, Elisabeth Peden concluded after some study that the process of implication in law was “correspondingly vague and lacking in definite principles”. Over two decades later, that characterisation remains accurate. The varied terminology in judicial use reflects an ambiguity over the normative position occupied by terms implied by law. That, in turn, has given rise to doctrinal and practical uncertainty in relation to the (non-)derogation of such terms and the standard against which any derogation should be scrutinised. This seminar will discuss how implication in law interacts with matters of intention, centrality and derogability, with the aim of advancing understanding of the proper ambit of exclusion of terms implied by law.

The International Summer School explores contemporary issues in areas such as arbitration, banking, global security, and climate change. These topics will be explored through subject-specific lectures, seminar discussions and activities. 

There will also be opportunities to enjoy educational and cultural trips. Reading is well-connected by rail, making it easy to travel and explore the country's towns, cities and historical sites.

The fee includes self-catering accommodation in University halls of residence on campus which are within walking distance of teaching facilities and convenient to food outlets. 

Timings of the event : 12:00-13:00

Title: “Quasi-Conversion", Crypto-Assets and the Tertium Quid

Abstract: The classification of crypto-assets as a tertium quid – a third category of personal property law, apart from things in possession and things in action - is reflected in the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill currently making its way through Parliament and in the case of D’Aloia v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 2342. One of the reasons, but not the only reason, why the Law Commission proposed this legislation to classify crypto-assets as a tertium quid is that, despite being intangible, they are involuntarily alienable. By this they mean that it is possible to steal a bitcoin. Despite the crypto-currency’s being intangible and therefore not possessable, it can be controlled, and the Law Commission propose that an owner be afforded an action developed by analogy with conversion to protect this right to control when their crypto-asset is stolen. This paper shows why chattel torts like conversion or trespass cannot be sensibly modified to provide protection for the crypto-assets’ owner. If this is right, it undercuts the reasoning for a tertium quid. Further, if we see crypto-assets as things in action this does not imply a remedial lacuna, despite the Commission’s claims to the contrary.