Evolving Priorities and Rising Standards: Spanish Law on Abuses of Market Power in the Light of the 2008 Guidance Paper on Article 82 EC

Author(s):  
Luis Ortiz Blanco ◽  
Pablo Ibáñez Colomo
Keyword(s):  
2018 ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Rafael Lara González

ResumenPese a su ubicuidad en la práctica contractual, las cláusulas de franquicia han recibido tratamiento incidental en la doctrina. La discusión sobre ellas se ha enfocado en los contratos de seguros de responsabilidad civil, y en la interpretación del artículo 76 de la Ley española de Contrato de Seguro. En este contexto se ha tratado de establecer si el asegurador puede o no oponer la cláusula de franquicia al tercero perjudicado. El presente trabajo analiza la cláusula de franquicia en la obligación principal del asegurador, su naturaleza jurídica, y examina su relación con los terceros perjudicados. La consideración principal a este respecto estará en si nos encontramos ante un seguro obligatorio o ante un seguro voluntario de responsabilidad civil. Palabras clave: Contrato de seguro; Cláusula de franquicia; Terceroperjudicado; Responsabilidad civil.AbstractDespite their ubiquity in contractual praxis, deductible clauses have received only incidental treatment in legal doctrine. Discussion on them has focused on civil liability insurance contracts, and the interpretation of article 76 of the Spanish Law of Insurance Contracts. In this context it has been attempted to establish whether the insurer can invoke the clause to oppose the injured third party's claim. This article examines the deductible clause included in the insurer's main obligation, its legal nature, and its relation to injured third parties. The main consideration in this regard will be whether the insurance contract is of a mandatory or voluntary nature.Keywords: Insurance contract; Deductible clause; Injured third party; Civil liability.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gibson

Despite what we learn in law school about the “meeting of the minds,” most contracts are merely boilerplate—take-it-or-leave-it propositions. Negotiation is nonexistent; we rely on our collective market power as consumers to regulate contracts’ content. But boilerplate imposes certain information costs because it often arrives late in the transaction and is hard to understand. If those costs get too high, then the market mechanism fails. So how high are boilerplate’s information costs? A few studies have attempted to measure them, but they all use a “horizontal” approach—i.e., they sample a single stratum of boilerplate and assume that it represents the whole transaction. Yet real-world transactions often involve multiple layers of contracts, each with its own information costs. What is needed, then, is a “vertical” analysis, a study that examines fewer contracts of any one kind but tracks all the contracts the consumer encounters, soup to nuts. This Article presents the first vertical study of boilerplate. It casts serious doubt on the market mechanism and shows that existing scholarship fails to appreciate the full scale of the information cost problem. It then offers two regulatory solutions. The first works within contract law’s unconscionability doctrine, tweaking what the parties need to prove and who bears the burden of proving it. The second, more radical solution involves forcing both sellers and consumers to confront and minimize boilerplate’s information costs—an approach I call “forced salience.” In the end, the boilerplate experience is as deep as it is wide. Our empirical work should reflect that fact, and our policy proposals should too.


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