*** ANGELA DALY: Private Power, Online Information Flows and EU Law. Mind the Gap. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford, OX2 9PH, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 – Fax: 510710 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). “Hart Studies in Competition Law,” No. 15. 2016, 162 pp, £50. ISBN 978-1-50990-063-3.
In theory, the Internet revolution that began just over twenty years ago was supposed to create a world of total freedom, free of the controls that had been exercised over sectors such as television, telephones and the press. These days, we have to say that none of this has happened. Poles of private power ‘play’ with internet users’ autonomy and public powers find it hard to ensure that the law of the fittest does not prevail. It was to discern the limits of the current legal and regulatory approach in the EU to addressing private economic power’s gatekeeping function over online information flows that Angela Davis devoted this book, which follows on from a doctoral thesis at the European University Institute in Florence.
Currently a researcher at Queensland University of Technology's Faculty of Law and the Institute of Social Research at its equivalent in Swinburne, and also at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society in the Netherlands, Angela Daly starts by pointing out that the European Union does not have the arms that could have blocked web giants’ appetites. In the introductory, chapter, which is of a theoretical nature, she demonstrates on the contrary that these ‘arms’ were chiselled out against a backdrop in which neoliberalism was present. Hence the internet is a universe where control by companies is mixed with individual freedom and technological possibilities provided for users, and tensions among these poles are examined by the author in detail before she moves on to look at what the concept of user autonomy means and how it is reconciled with competition law.
The four following chapters examine four case studies of situations illustrating major trends in the establishment of internet markets and how the European Union can deal with this. Firstly, there are issues of dominance in how Internet access services are provided to users, service suppliers being in a position to censor or otherwise manipulate what users send and receive. The claimed neutrality of the internet therefore largely remains to be guaranteed. The author then looks in a critical manner at the same phenomena in the domain of search engines, then at mobile devices and finally at the Cloud. This methodical, constructively critical work is punctuated by conclusions that trace out ways in which European citizens and consumers can have more effective protection in the future from the European Union. Pierre Bouvier
*** ULF BERNITZ, CAROLINE HEIDE-JORGENSEN (Eds.): Marketing and Advertising Law in a Process of Harmonisation. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford, OX2 9PH, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 – Fax: 510710 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). “Modern Studies in European Law,” No. 70. 2017, 266 pp, £65. ISBN 978-1-5099-0067-1.
In this book following on from a conference held at the Law Faculty of Copenhagen University in 2015, academic experts look in detail at deep changes in the law on marketing and advertising since the adoption and entry into force of EU directives on unfair commercial practices and misleading and comparative advertising. While this legislation partially requires full harmonisation and contains a comprehensive blacklist of prohibited practices, other domains only call for minimum levels of harmonisation. The authors examine this in detail, reviewing important European Court of Justice jurisprudence and areas of shadow the Court has not clarified, along with the various public reports on this subject by the European Commission. They pay particular attention to the revised, comprehensive guidelines on business-to-consumer marketing and business to business marketing. (PBo)
*** ANNINA H. PERSSON, ELEONOR KRISTOFFERSSON (Eds.): Swedish Perspectives on Private Law Europeanisation. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford, OX2 9PH, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 – Fax: 510710 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). “Swedish Studies in European Law,”No.9. 2017, 196 pp, £55. ISBN 978-1-84946-697-4.
Due to European integration, private law is being harmonised within the EU, an important step in this direction being the creation in 2009 of a Draft Common Frame of Reference. Does this mean that we are moving towards codification at EU level that would be the equivalent of, for example, the French civil code or the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch? What pros and cons would emerge from an intensive harmonisation process? Are there lessons to be learnt from the Europeanization of private law throughout history? Over and above the draft Common Frame of Reference, what steps have been taken to create a European private law system? It is in order to answer these and many other question that a conference was organised in Stockholm in April 2013 among experts and researchers. This book sets out the proceedings in the light of a selection of interventions written after the conference. The first part of the book looks at the Europeanisation of private law throughout history, going back as far as the Roman roots of continental legal systems. Authors then investigate the harmonisation process that is underway in the light of European influences on the Spanish supreme court and the Swedish legal system, also casting an eye at the profound differences between Nordic functionalism and continental substantialism when it comes to property law. The world of customs and contracts is also addressed. The third part of the book envisages the future that is shaping up for private European law, the general opinion being that total harmonisation is not the path to be followed, not in the short-term at any rate. (PBo)
*** BAREND VAN LEEUWEN: European Standardisation of Services and its Impact on Private Law. Paradoxes of Convergence. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford, OX2 9PH, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 – Fax: 510710 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). “Modern Studies in European Law,” No. 68. 2017, 231 pp, £60. ISBN 978-1-5099-0833-2.
The follow-up to a doctoral thesis for the European University Institute in Florence, this book provides a legal analysis of the impact of European standardisation of services on private law. Two sectors are taken into account, namely healthcare and tourism. The author starts by noting that standardisation in this domain aims to facilitate the free circulation of services within the Single Market. He aims to verify whether at the end of the day there is convergence between the European legal order set up by standardisation and the private law prevailing in the member states. To this end, he initially looks at how rules are drawn up and the legal framework surrounding this process, essentially by the European Standardisation Committee. The author, who today lectures in European law at Groningen University, then explains how European rules are received in private law, for example in contract law or in tort. To this end, Barend van Leeuwen studies various cases and reviews the rulings of national courts, mostly from Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Interviews with standardisation or private law practitioners from 2012 to 2014 enable him to provide his work with an empirical dimension. His approach leads him, in conclusion, to point out two ‘paradoxes of convergence’ and formulate suggestions on how to get round them. (PBo)
*** SOFIA OLIVEIRA PAIS (Ed.): Competition Law Challenges in the Next Decade. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 – Fax: 3761727 – Email: info@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Euroclio," No. 94. 2016, 261 pp, €40, £32, $51.95. ISBN 978-2-87574-328-2.
Following on from seminars and conferences organised in March 2014 and 2015 at Porto Law School - Catholic University of Portugal with the support of the European Commission, in this book fifteen experts from the academic world reflect on the challenges to be faced the European competition policy over the next decade. Three subjects that are becoming unavoidable in the European and national practice of competition law are analysed in particular, namely antitrust private enforcement, exclusionary abuses and state aid. The first section of the book looks at the Damages Directive and the question of whether it really does allows a coherent European approach to antitrust private enforcement. The question is answered in the light of experience in Finland, Poland and Portugal. In the second part of the book, various types of abuse leading to exclusion from a market are reviewed, be it unfair competition through excessively low prices, refusal to license intellectual property rights or abuses in aftermarkets, along with a critical eye at corrective measures taken at EU level. Finally, the third part of the book focuses on state aid. After addressing the evolution of the 'effects on trade' and 'distortion of competition’ in state aid law, four authors look at Spanish and Portuguese issues, namely the problem with public financing of airports and airlines that occurred in Spain and the Portuguese experience of the complementary role that member states can play using soft law to lessen the negative impact of aid on competition, or by encouraging better use of public resources through the creation of a national development bank. (PBo)
*** IOANNIS PAPAZISIS: Le livre noir sur le pétrole en Grèce. Editions Architas (20 rue Asklipiou, GR-10680 Athens). Tel-Fax: (30-210) 3605304). 2017, 586 pp, €25. ISBN 978-618-83065-3-0.
In this book, Ioannis Papazisis, editorialist on international issues for a number of newspapers in Thessalonica and member of staffat the Egnatia television channel, analyses all elements of the national saga that has prevented the vast oil wealth from being the horn of plenty that it had the potential to be. He reveals why Greek politicians have not done their duty, explaining the invisible hand that stopped them. Consequently, Greece was unable to become an oil-producing country like the United Arab Emirates, experiencing quite the opposite in the form of humiliation. He presents many maps of the country’s regions showing oil deposits and studies by prestigious well-known scientists that have never before been published. All this leads him to formulate this accusation: ‘By demonstrating the scale of our enormous mineral wealth, the scale of the crime emerges very clearly that was committed by our politicians and all political parties to the detriment of all Greeks, since they deliberately left our subsoil unused, which led us to the painful economic situation we all know today.’ (AKa)
*** IOANNIS VASSILIOU: L'expansion de l'Union européenne dans l'espace. Editions Historical Quest (66 rue Chrisiidos, GR-13122 Ilion. Tel: (30-210) 2611832 – Fax: 2611832 – Email: info@historical-quest.com – Internet: http://www.historical-quest.com ). Histoire européenne series. 2017, 88 pp, €9. ISBN 978-618-5088-29-3.
The desire to project the European Union into space and promote scientific research in this domain as far as possible is very old and has never been denied. The wise use of space impacts directly on a vast range of very terrestrial domains, ranging from television to tourism via telecommunications, financial systems, climate change, health, unemployment, defence, security, energy management, meteorology, surveillance of the atmosphere and marine milieu, environmental protection, managing natural resources, industrial competitions, aviation, shipping, railways, agriculture, biotech, recycling, forestry, distress signals, rescue operations, civil protection, traffic, transport, town and country planning, etc. Expert in the European Union’s regional policy Ioannis Vassiliou devotes this book to a critical analysis of the way the EU has managed to put space at the service of its citizens, providing the reader with elements that will enable him to draw conclusions about how successful this has been. He also sets out current problems and considers possible perspectives for the future. (AKa)