Consumers as Unassisted Minors: Asymmetrical Sanction for Unfair Contract Terms

Grzegorz J. Blicharz ()
Additional contact information
Grzegorz J. Blicharz: Department of Roman Law, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, 31-007 Kraków, Poland

Laws, 2022, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: The consumer distance contract regulated within the European Union was compared to the Roman law solution known by its medieval name as negotium claudicans, thus to the contract with unassisted pupilli (children under the age of puberty, i.e., minors). This article builds on this comparison and applies it to yet another EU directive which follows even more closely the idea to interfere with the binding nature of contractual terms. The recent case law of the CJEU regarding the sanction enclosed in the Article 6(1) of Directive 93/13/EEC, its implementation into national laws, and the standpoints of various legal doctrines especially in Polish law inspire to ask about the nature of sanction for unfair contract terms and its importance for the modern discussion on the typology of nullity. The paper tries to answer these questions by marrying solutions applied in different times and contexts. It compares the EU sanction with the Roman law of contracts with unassisted minors and with its legacy in European and South African law. Both examples, according to us, are related by the similar nature of the sanctions which bear strikingly similar characteristics: they are asymmetrical and escape the modern typologies of nullity.

Keywords: consumer law; unassisted minors; unfair contract terms; nullity; Roman law; comparative law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/11/6/87/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/11/6/87/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:11:y:2022:i:6:p:87-:d:987670

Access Statistics for this article

Laws is currently edited by Ms. Heather Liang

More articles in Laws from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().