Digital Technologies and the Law of Obligations

Digital Technologies and the Law of Obligations critically examines the emergence of new digital technologies and the challenges they pose to the traditional law of obligations, and discusses the extent to which existing contract and tort law rules and doctrines are equipped to meet these new challenges.

This book covers various contract and tort law issues raised by emerging technologies ? including distributed ledger technology, blockchain-based smart contracts, and artificial intelligence ? as well as by the evolution of the internet into a participative web fuelled by user-generated content, and by the rise of the modern-day collaborative economy facilitated by digital technologies. Chapters address these topics from the perspective of both the common law and the civil law tradition. While mostly focused on the current state of affairs and recent debates and initiatives within the European Union regulatory framework, contributors also discuss the central themes from the perspective of the national law of obligations, examining the adaptability of existing legal doctrines to contemporary challenges, addressing the occasional legislative attempts to deal with the private law aspects of these challenges, and pointing to issues where legislative interventions would be most welcomed. Case studies are drawn from the United States, Singapore, and other parts of the common law world.

Digital Technologies and the Law of Obligations will be of interest to legal scholars and researchers in the fields of contract law, tort law, and digital law, as well as to legal practitioners and members of law reform bodies.

Table of cases; Table of legislation; Preface; Abbreviations; Notes on contributors; Introduction; Chapter 1: Contract and Tort Law in the Digital Age: Contemporary Challenges to the Law of Obligations; Part I: Digital Technologies and Other Contemporary Challenges in Tort Law; Chapter 2: Civil Liability of Internet Intermediaries for Illegal Online Content; Chapter 3: Sharing Economy as the Contemporary Challenge for the Law of Torts; Chapter 4: Rethinking Tort Law in the Corporate Group Situation; Chapter 5: Blockchain-Based Registration and Transfer of Shares: Consequences in the Area of Law of Obligations; Chapter 6: Liability for Artificial Intelligence; Part II: Contract Law Challenges Posed by Smart Contracts; Chapter 7: What are Smart Contracts? An Attempt of their Demystification; Chapter 8: The ‘Contracting Problem’ Revisited: Explaining the Formation of Algorithmic Contracts under the Common Law; Chapter 9: Addressing Contemporary Challenges in Contract Law through Millenary Concepts; Chapter 10: Smart Contracts and Evolution of Legal Perspective on Protection of Human Rights; Part III: Digital Contracts, Accounts, and Services; Chapter 11: How Terms of Service Agreements, as Contracts of Adhesion, Influence Users’ Digital Accounts, and Their Content?; Chapter 12: Online Peer-to-Peer Accommodation Services: The ECJ’s Judgment in Case C-390/18, Airbnb Ireland; Index

Zvonimir Slakoper is a Full Professor of Civil Law and the Head of the Department of Civil Law at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law, and a Full Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business. His expertise covers the law of obligations, especially banking contracts, and company law, and he has written, co-authored, and edited several books, including university textbooks, and many journal articles in these fields.

Ivan Tot is an Assistant Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business. His research mainly focuses on the law of obligations, banking law, and European contract law. He is a Co-Chair of the ELI Croatian Hub.