DAVID GILO, Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law
Email: gilod@post.tau.ac.il
ARIEL PORAT, Tel Aviv University
Email: porata@post.tau.ac.il

This Article calls for a move to the third phase in courts' attitudes toward consumer contracts. In the first phase, consumer contracts were considered ordinary contracts by courts thus requiring no special treatment. In the second phase, courts and legislatures became suspicious of consumer contracts and developed several tools for handling them, focusing on the characteristics of the parties and the transaction. In this Article, we suggest that it is time to introduce a third phase: Rather than examining each consumer contract in isolation, courts need to acknowledge that consumer contracts are a market-phenomenon which calls for a market-based approach. Instead of focusing on the characteristics of the parties and the transaction, courts should inquire whether there is competition, or potential competition, over contracts in the supplier’s market. In order to do so, courts should look at the particular features of the supplier’s market, that we identify, and also on the potential strategic interaction among competitors. We argue that when competition over contracts, or the threat of such competition, is sufficiently strong, consumer contracts should be deemed efficient and fair, and courts should not strike down clauses incorporated in such contracts. Interestingly, and counter-intuitively, this conclusion holds even where consumers are uninformed. We offer workable guidelines for courts as to how they could implement the market-based approach proposed in this Article and show how this approach could produce outcomes opposite to, but more efficient and fair, than the ones conventionally adopted by courts or offered by legal scholars.

JAVIER A. FRANCO, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: javierandresfranco@gmail.com

Nowadays, one of the most commonly used contracts for the carriage of goods by sea is the charter party contract. The present article aims to identify and briefly analyze the effects that any kind of delays could have, either on the part of the shipowner or on the part of the charterer, in a time charter party or a voyage charter party.

TIMOTHY Q. DE BOOYS, University of Amsterdam - Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL)
Email: T.Q.deBooys@uva.nl
MARTIJN W. HESSELINK, University of Amsterdam - Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL)
Email: m.w.hesselink@uva.nl
CHANTAL MAK, University of Amsterdam - Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL)
Email: C.Mak@uva.nl

This study provides an in-depth and detailed comparison between the CFR and the proposed Consumer Rights Directive. Furthermore, it identifies those provisions of the CFR which could be used when amending the Proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive in the framework of the legislative procedure. In this regard, it suggests some amendments based on the CFR. A correlation table between the provisions of the CFR and the provisions of the proposed Consumer Rights Directive is provided in the annex of the study.

MARIA ELISA CAMACHO, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: maria_elisa_camacho@yahoo.es

One of the commitments assumed by the Colombian Government as a result of the Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the United States consists on the amendment of some of the elements that regulate the contract of Commercial Agency. This been said, within the Colombian Law the interpretation of this issue has never enjoyed a pacific comprehension in Colombia. For this, and taking into account these circumstances, we intend to analyze the process of regulation of this contract worldwide, from its beginnings up to the recent developments in order to determine the convenience of the changes requested.

CRISTHIAM REMIGIO LEÓN OROSCO, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: a19998697@pucp.edu.pe

At this time, in the international context, there is a complex network of contractual relations in the environment of engineering in international trade, which configure as a specialized part of the new Lex Mercatoria and in the field of engineering is called Ius ingenierum. All this has resulted in a transnational framework of rules that have been developed remarkably in the field of engineering through the model contracts, practices of international trade and general principles, whose aim is simply to provide specific regulations to appropriately respond to the needs of each country. The importance of this article, analyzed from the Eurotúnel case perspective, is to present the characteristics of these rules adopted in the field of engineering in international trade to promote an improve the investment politics in the infrastructure sector.

JOSHUA C. TATE, Southern Methodist University (SMU) - Dedman School of Law
Email: jctate@smu.edu

In recent years, scholars have given much attention to the problem of charitable trust enforcement. Departing from the common law, section 405(c) of the Uniform Trust Code provides that “[t]he settlor of a charitable trust, among others, may maintain a proceeding to enforce the trust.� This Article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent, a settlor’s right to enforce a charitable trust should be assignable to third parties. Should the law permit the settlor of a charitable trust to assign her enforcement rights after the creation of the trust, or should assignments be recognized only if they are spelled out in the trust instrument? How many potential assignees may the settlor properly select? Once the right has been assigned to a third party, should that third party also retain the right of assignment, so that the right can potentially be passed from one individual to the next in perpetuity? What would be the ramifications of granting a right of assignment to the settlor’s personal representative? Any resolution of these issues must protect the interests of charitable beneficiaries, but also be fair to trustees and not overwhelm the courts with frivolous litigation.