Sanctions for Lack of Fulfilment of Information Duties: Searching for an Adequate Regulatory Model for Personalized Agreements

Abstract

The effectiveness of the protection-by-information model in consumer law depends primarily on the method of structuring pre-contractual duties and sanctions correlated with the lack of fulfilment of said duties. Modern legal doctrine considers applying technology to law-making i.e. to fix flaws in the existing protection-by-information model. However, during this discussion, the problem of sanctions for lack of fulfilment of information duties has been disregarded. This article fills this gap by exploring how the use of technology might influence the adequacy of contemporary sanctioning models. There are two main approaches towards how lack of fulfilment of information obligations should be sanctioned. First, the fact that consumer acts based on his false impression of reality can trigger liability. As a result, the individual protection mechanism (i. a. regulation of mistake and deceit) is seen as a proper sanction for non-compliance with information duties. Second, failing to provide pre-contractual information might itself be sanctionable. In this scenario, standardized protection mechanisms are preferred (Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Consumer Rights Directive). However, the balance achieved by linking specific sanctioning mechanisms to particular pre-contractual obligations is disturbed by the use of personalization tools during contracting. Therefore, the postulate of answering the personalization of contracts with personalization of pre-contractual information duties is discussed. The possibility of extending the scope of personalization to sanctions of these norms is considered. Finally, the introduction of smart execution mechanisms is explored, and the influence of technical changes on the essential characteristics of protection-by-information model is observed.