Globalisation and technological innovation have been fuelling the need for increasing levels of trust in private actors, such as companies or special interest groups, to regulate and enforce significant aspects of people's daily lives: from environmental and social protection to the areas of food safety, advertising and financial markets. This book investigates the trust vested in private actors from the perspective of European citizens. It answers the question of whether private actors live up to citizens' expectations or whether more should be done as to the safeguarding of citizens' interests. Several cross-cutting studies explore how private regulation and enforcement are embedded in EU law. The book offers an innovative approach to private regulation and enforcement by focusing on the specific EU context which, unlike the national and transnational ones, has not yet been widely explored. This context merits a stand-alone analysis because of the unique normative framework of the EU, as a particular polity itself but also in relation to its Member States. With an overall analysis of the main aspects of private regulation and enforcement across different policy fields of the EU, the book adds a missing tile to the mosaic of public–private governance studies.

Globalisation and technological innovation have been fueling the need for more and more trust in private actors, such as companies or special interest groups, in regulating and enforcing significant aspects of people's daily lives: from environmental and social protection to the areas of food safety, advertisement and financial markets. This book investigates the trust vested in private actors from the perspective of European citizens. It answers the question whether private actors live up to citizens' expectations or more should be done as to the safeguards of citizens' interests. Several cross-cutting studies explore how private regulation and enforcement is embedded in EU law. The book offers an innovative approach to private regulation and enforcement by focusing on the specific EU context, which, unlike the national and transnational ones, has not been widely explored yet. This context merits a stand-alone analysis because of the unique normative framework of the EU, as a particular polity itself but also in relation to its Member States. With an overall analysis of the main aspects of private regulation and enforcement across different policy fields of the EU, the book therefore adds another missing tile to the mosaic of public-private governance studies

Over the past fifteen years, the optimal enforcement of EU competition law has become a major concern. This book contains a unique collection of articles by lawyers and economists on current issues in the public and private enforcement of competition law. Public enforcement has been strengthened in numerous ways – for example, through the introduction of a leniency programme and a substantial increase in fines for competition law violations. At the same time the EU Commission has been promoting private enforcement – for example, by developing a legal framework that grants victims of EU antitrust law infringements access to compensation. The contributions in this book address a range of topics in the area of competition law enforcement, including the role of fines and leniency programmes in public enforcement; access to evidence and the quantification of damages in private enforcement; and the interaction between public and private enforcement of competition law in Europe.

Private Enforcement of EU Law before National Courts successfully illustrates how legal actions brought by private parties can be instrumental in strengthening compliance with EU law. Through a detailed examination of selected EU legislation across the fields of procurement, intellectual property rights, consumer protection, and competition law, Folkert Wilman compares various remedies and procedures in which private parties have been utilised in the redress of grievances under EU law. An essential reference work for practicing lawyers acting before domestic courts in matters of EU Law, this timely publication offers new insights into private enforcement as a supplementary enforcement instrument, and offers clarity on how such a tool impacts on contractual remedies, procedural issues and the role of judicial review.

Most recent studies on transnational private regulation have limited themselves to the examination of a single regime, industry or sector. This book fills a gap in the current literature, offering a rich comparative study of the institutional design of transnational private regulation in the fields of advertising and food safety. The author provides original insights in the practice of enforcing transnational private regulation and its interplay with courts and administrative authorities. The book's findings, drawn from jurisdictions in the European Union, help identify circumstances in which administrative enforcement may strengthen private enforcement mechanisms, illuminate the role of courts in enforcing transnational private regulation, and inform current theoretical understandings of the function of public enforcement capacity in private regulatory regimes. This book will appeal to scholars and students of regulation and enforcement, as well as policy makers and lawmakers concerned with advertising and food safety regulation.

This is a remarkably ambitious work of scholarship. What can Europe bring to private law, and what can it take away? And how do we shape the institutional design of the governance model(s) that comprise Europe ? A stellar collection of contributors provides important fresh insights into the evolving and varied patterns according to which private law is generated in Europe. Stephen Weatherill, Somerville College, Oxford, UK The debate concerning the desirability and modes of harmonisation of European Private Law (EPL) has, until now, been mainly concerned with substantive rules. The link between rules and institutions suggests that governance of both the process of harmonisation and its outcome is necessary. This book covers various perspectives on the challenge of designing governance for EPL: the implications of a multi-level system in terms of competences, the interplay between market integration and regulation, the legitimacy of private law making, the importance of self-regulation, the usefulness of conflict of law rules, the role of intergovernmental institutions, and the aftermath of enlargement. In addressing these, the book s achievements are to successfully link two areas of scholarship that have so far remained separate, EPL and new modes of governance, and to address institutional reforms. The contributions offer different proposals to improve governance: the creation of a European Law institute, the improvement of judicial cooperation among national courts, the use of committees for implementation of EPL. Suggesting practical institutional reforms that can improve the process of Europeanisation of private law, this book will be of great interest to scholars of law, politics, political science, sociology and economics. It will also appeal to policymakers, and members of both European institutions and national institutions dealing with European matters.

In twelve topical papers, written by renowned experts in distinct areas of the law, the reader will find out how private law and private international law instruments can serve public policy goals (such as the protection of the environment, product safety or services of general economic interest) and how these instruments interact with regulation in the proper sense. A must for those who want to explore the borderline if it exists between public and private law in the EU. Jules Stuyck, Leuven University, Belgium In the context of the current debate on the desirability and process of forming European private law (EPL), this book considers one fundamental question addressing its descriptive and normative dimension: does and should EPL pursue regulatory objectives beyond market integration? The editors argue that because national categories are of little help in grasping the characteristics of a multi-level regulatory system, it is necessary to link three perspectives: private law, regulation and conflict of laws. This book explores this interaction in four distinct fields: product liability, environmental protection, public utilities and e-commerce. The results show that EPL is highly regulatory and that the implications of this change have not been adequately considered by institutions and by scholars. The Regulatory Function of European Private Law will be of great interest to academics of law, as well as to private and public lawyers and European policymakers.