Pop goes the diesel! A Case comment on Case C‑343/19 Verein fur Konsumenteninformation v Volkswagen AG

Efficient Third Party Liability of Auditors in Tort Law and in Contract Law

Kenneth J Arrow, Nobel laureate in Insurance, Risk and Resource Allocation (1965), pointed out that risk is pervasive and that one of the most established methods of dealing with risk is insurance. However, not every kind of risk is insurable. Traditionally, risks involving losses on damage to property, injury to people, legal liability claims arising out of damage to property or injury to people and consequential losses arising from damage to property are insurable against a wide range of perils. Generally, business risks are not insurable. A characteristic of business risks is that the loss or damage is in nature a ‘pure financial loss’. This may be defined as a loss for which it does not involve damage to physical property but only results in financial losses. Insolvency is an example.

The pandemic has negatively impacted thousands of businesses, but many global brand companies have adapted to the situation and have made great strides by changing their strategies. Global brand companies were able to increase their market capitalization from 12% to 565% during the pandemic and isolation. The article analyzes the market capitalization of companies included in the "100 best in the world" rating, the size of large companies in the region and its changes, changes in the market capital of countries such as Japan, UK, Germany, Canada, USA, France, China. In the course of the analysis, the author reviewed the reports of the “500 best companies in the world”, “100 best companies in the world”, materials of the World Economic Forum “World Competitiveness Index”. When analyzing the market capitalization of the best companies in the world, general logical methods were used to collect information and effectively search, group, process and summarize the necessary material, compare materials of international organizations and ratings, as well as the work of research scientists. According to the comparative method, the analysis was carried out on the example of the best US companies: Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp, Amazon. som Inc., Chinese giants: Tencent, Alibaba GRP-ADR, Kweichow Mouta, the best in Japan: Toyota Motor, Sony Group Corp, German companies like Volkswagen AG and famous French companies like L'oreal and others

The aim of this paper is to develop scientific-theoretical approaches to separate types of marketing risks that consumers perceive in online purchases, with the purpose of identification and neutralization of risk situations in the process of consumer decision making during purchase of goods on the online market. With the steady growth of online sales and the growth of global online sales through Covid-19, the role of consumer risk in buying food on the online market is growing. Consumer risk has a significant impact on the behavior of consumers who focus on avoiding potential losses and this online shopping risk differs from the risks that are present when buying offline goods. The article considers the approaches of scientists to identification of components of consumer risk and loss as a result of risk. The concept of consumer risk is defined and the consumer risk is actually perceived in the online purchase of food products in order to develop a theoretical basis for the theory of marketing risk management. The authors determined that consumer risk of online food purchase is a subjective probability of financial loss, time loss, loss of personal information, social status, deterioration of physical or mental health of the consumer as a result of online shopping, which did not meet consumer expectations and significantly reduced his loyalty to the place of online purchase of products. The types of consumer risks are distinguished: functional, financial, physical, temporal, psychological, social, service. It is determined that the functional (operational risk) is connected with the use of the purchased online goods for the purpose, financial risk is connected with financial losses due to the online purchase, physical risk is connected with the possibility of health damage due to consumption of the goods of poor quality, time risk is connected with loss of time, psychological risk connected with internal consumer dissatisfaction, social risk is connected with negative reaction of others to online purchase of goods, service risk is connected with process of service of online purchase of goods. For each component of consumer risk, the nature of the risk, the factors causing the risk and the possible negative consequences of the risk are determined. Identification of consumer risks will allow developing a methodology for their assessment and measures to neutralize consumer risks. Reducing consumer risks will allow food producers and online retailers to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, which will facilitate further growth of online sales.

This paper analyses the technological activity on energy harvesting and storage systems, such as flywheels and regenerative shock absorbers, for support of renewable energy and electric vehicle applications. The activity is analyzed based on the evolution of the patents over the last 20 years, based on databases such as Patbase and Derwnet. The data reveal that less than 50 % of the total flywheels patents and utility models are granted. China is identified as the leading innovator in this area, followed by the United States, Japan, and Germany, which collectively account for 84 % of all patent families. A ranking of related companies and institutes is dominated by Chinese companies such as CANDELA (SHENZHEN) TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION CO., SHENYANG WEIKONG NEW ENERGY TECH CO., followed by German and American companies such as LUK LAMELLEN, VYCON, Siemens, and Caterpillar Inc. The leading regions on regenerative shock absorbers technologies are Germany, China, USA, and the European Patent Office (EPO). The study shows a leadership of Germany accounting for 39 % of the priority patents. The study also identified the top 20 applicants with the highest number of patent families, which included European companies such as SCHAEFFLER AG, HYDAC, VOLKSWAGEN AG, and Continental Automotive GmbH.

Product liability policies respond to legal liabilities to third parties incurred as a result of defective products. They cover: death and bodily injury; damage to property. Product liability policies normally do not cover: loss caused by negligent designs, plans, specifications or advice (see professional indemnity, chapters 8 to 11 above); the cost of recalling defective products from the market (see product recall, chapter 13 below); the cost of repairing or replacing the defective product itself (policies which provide this type of cover are known as product guarantee policies, see below at para 12.85); pure financial loss, that is to say financial loss which is not consequent on death, bodily injury or damage to property (this type of cover may be available as an extension to the product liability cover, see below at para 12.82).

As generally understood in the law and economics literature, the economic loss rule states that a plaintiff cannot recover damages for a pure financial loss. The comparative study of the pure economic loss rule reveals that the recognition and significance attributed to such rule, and to the notion of ‘economic loss’, varies considerably across Western legal systems. Bussani and Palmer analyse the results of an extensive case study on the issue of pure economic loss across all national legal systems of Europe and provide an interesting grouping of the approaches followed by national courts of Europe, describing them variously as ‘liberal’, ‘pragmatic’ or ‘conservative’. The question has emerged in the European context in conjunction with the ongoing search for a common core of European private law and the consideration of a unified European civil code. Comparative legal analysis reveals that the policies and rules governing tortious liability for pure economic loss in Europe are not governed by common principles. Legal systems simply do not share a common approach to this issue. Even those that seek to preclude recoverability of pure financial loss use different definitions and follow different formulations of the problem. An interesting point recently brought to light by comparative legal analysis is that, unlike most other issues in the field of torts, the different approaches on the issue of pure economic loss do not follow the familiar common law/civil law divide.

Pure financial loss and international jurisdiction for tort under the Brussels I (Recast) Regulation

As generally understood in the law and economics literature, the economic loss rule states that a plaintiff cannot recover damages for a pure financial loss. The comparative study of the pure economic loss rule reveals that the recognition and significance attributed to such rule, and to the notion of ‘economic loss’, varies considerably across Western legal systems. Bussani and Palmer analyse the results of an extensive case study on the issue of pure economic loss across all national legal systems of Europe and provide an interesting grouping of the approaches followed by national courts of Europe, describing them variously as ‘liberal’, ‘pragmatic’ or ‘conservative’. The question has emerged in the European context in conjunction with the ongoing search for a common core of European private law and the consideration of a unified European civil code. Comparative legal analysis reveals that the policies and rules governing tortious liability for pure economic loss in Europe are not governed by common principles. Legal systems simply do not share a common approach to this issue. Even those that seek to preclude recoverability of pure financial loss use different definitions and follow different formulations of the problem. An interesting point recently brought to light by comparative legal analysis is that, unlike most other issues in the field of torts, the different approaches on the issue of pure economic loss do not follow the familiar common law/civil law divide.

In this article, we examine how investor motives affect investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, we compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany and investigate whether they suffer from a default shock that was recently identified by Dorfleitner et al. (2019). In general, we find evidence of a default shock in equity crowdfunding that occurs immediately after the event or if investors experience more than two insolvencies. Moreover, we find that sustainability-oriented investors pledge larger amounts of money and invest in more campaigns than ordinary crowd investors. The results also suggest that sustainability-oriented crowd investors care about non-financial returns, as they react more sensitively after experiencing a default in their equity crowdfunding portfolios, which indicates that they suffer beyond the pure financial loss. These findings contribute to recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and how individual investment motives and personal experiences affect investment decisions.

Negligent Acts Causing Pure Financial Loss: Policy Factors at Work

In this article, we examine how investor motives affect investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, we compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany and investigate whether they suffer from a default shock that was recently identified by Dorfleitner et al. (2019). In general, we find evidence of a default shock in equity crowdfunding that occurs immediately after the event and if investors experience more than two insolvencies. Moreover, we find that sustainability-oriented investors pledge larger amounts of money and invest in more campaigns than ordinary crowd investors. The results also suggest that sustainability-oriented crowd investors care about non-financial returns, as they react more sensitively after experiencing a default in their equity crowdfunding portfolios, which indicates that they suffer beyond the pure financial loss. These findings contribute to recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and how individual investment motives and personal experiences affect investment decisions.

This chapter analyses the legislative history, main substantive content, and normative implications of Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. The ‘Brussels I Regulation’ that replaces the Brussels Convention of 1968 aims to modernise jurisdiction rules and to simplify enforcement formalities. The chapter examines the main jurisdictional innovations including the reform of the alternative jurisdiction rules for sale of goods contracts and the reform of the special jurisdiction rules for consumer contracts. Case C-386/05 Colour Drack v. LEXX International Vertriebs regarding sale of goods is analysed. The chapter further examines the streamlined enforcement system that introduces the principle of automatic recognition, which is said to be founded on the mutual trust between the Member States. Case C-238/05 ASML v. SEMIS dealing with enforcement of a default judgment is reviewed.

In the increasingly advanced digital era, the retail industry has witnessed some important paradigms in offline and online stores. In addition to technology development, both platforms offer different opportunities. Online stores are a popular trend among consumers who want to shop easily and conveniently through online platforms. But over time, market participants realized that the presence of online shopping posed risks to them. For example, there is fierce competition between offline and online stores. In this context, tiktok stores have become a new threat to traditional retailers, and market traders need to be able to compete with the prices offered by tiktok stores, which are generally cheaper because they have no physical operating costs. This study focuses on the impact of tiktok stores on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The method used in this study is qualitative, collecting non-numerical data such as observational interviews and content analysis. This study targets market traders and actors behind online stores, specifically in Surabaya, to support data obtained. Through this study, researchers made decisions about aspects of this study. Research conclusions: (1) The existence of online stores has made many bankrupt market traders become online store players, because online stores have more profit prospects than market traders. (2) The busyness of online stores eliminates the possibility of extinction of market traders, because online shopping involves high risks of fraud, such as counterfeiting, etc., which may cause financial losses to consumers. Market Traders are more secure than online stores due to their relative reliance on direct interaction.

consist of a combination of damage remedies paid to the victims and financial subsidies paid to the tortfeasor. For obvious pragmatic reasons, we rarely observe such combined operation of the liability system in the real world. Beyond the irony of such theoretical considerations lies an important lesson. The core notion that seems to necessitate the theoretical contradictions of the economic loss rule is the idea that the optimal scope of liability is determined by the impact of alternative liability rules on the total social cost of accidents. Activities that occasion a mere reallocation of costs and benefits, with no incremental social cost, cannot as such be considered socially harmful. If no other considerations of the parties' reliance and distributive justice enter into the policy considerations, the imposition of fult liability would be unwarranted. If an individual occasions an unjustified transfer of wealth from one party to another and is made liable for the loss suffered by one victim, he should, by the same logic, be allowed to recover the value of the benefit from other third parties who received an unexpected benefit from his action. In case of wrongful behavior which occasions a zero sum transfer of wealth, the amount of net liability imposed on the tortfeasor should also equal zero, given the offsetting effects of positive and negative liabilities when balancing harm to victims with potential benefits to unsuspecting third parties. The important point here is to recognize that, according to several competing conceptions of justice , a zeIo net liability rule for the alleged tortfeasor does not necessarily justify a rule excluding liability altogether, denying compensation for those who suffered a private loss. Here lies one important element that drives the intellectual and dogmatic tension behind the economic loss rule. In the following section, we shall evaluate some elements of the traditional debate within the normative framework of law and economics. 3.3 In Search of Comparable Categories From an economic perspective, the legal notion of pure economic loss is quite unfit to serve as a normative criterion of adjudication. As suggested above, the legal notion of economic loss is, in fact, a very imperfect proxy for the economic category of socially relevant cost, which ideally should guide the optimal design of liabitity rules. The understanding of the relevant economic categories may in this context serve two valuable purposes: (a) as a positive criterion, to understand the many facets of the economic loss rule and to reconcile some of the apparent contradictions in the judicial implementation of such rule; and (b) as a normative criterion, to guide lawmakers and courts in the design and implementation of liability rules dealing with pure economic loss. This conten tdownloaded on Tue, I8 Dec 2012 I2 :56 :14 I r l l A l l use sub jec t o . lSTOi l I c r i i r . l l i i Ccn i l i l r i r l s 20031 AN ECONOMIC RESTATEMENT 135 Contrary to the conclusions reached by several legal commentators on this issue,so we suggest that the emergence and diffusion of the economic loss rule is more than a mere historical accident. We suggest that such exclusion of liability is in many instances appropriate and that several of the factual situations governed by the economic loss rule are correctly adjudicated. An economic analysis also reconciles some of the apparent contradictions of the judicial applications of the economic loss rule in the various legal systems considered