CCLFR Research Seminar - Professor Christian Twigg-Flesner

Paper Title: Algorithmic Contracts and Consumer Law – thoughts from ELI’s Guiding Principles and Model Rules for Algorithmic Contracts project

Paper Abstract

Exciting technological developments offer increased potential for contract automation. After much excitement about “smart contracts”, the focus has now shifted to contract automation through algorithmic-decision making (ADM) based on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, especially deep-learning algorithms. Imagine a new form of “digital assistant” which would not only assist a consumer in identifying possible purchase options (as is already the case with digital voice assistants and some chatbots) but take over the conclusion of routine contracts for a consumer. Would taking a consumer out of the decision-making loop altogether pose new challenges for (consumer) contract law? The European Law Institute (ELI) is part-way through a project exploring the many legal implications of utilising AI-driven ADM in contracting. Its first, interim, output focuses on testing the ADM-readiness of the current EU consumer law acquis. This paper will sketch the main elements of this interim report and suggest pointers for the continuing debate around algorithmic contracting.

Short biography

Christian Twigg-Flesner LL.B. PCHE Ph.D. (Sheffield) is Professor of Contract and Consumer Law at the University of Warwick (since September 2017). Before he joined Warwick, he was Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Hull, having joined there as Lecturer in 2004, and he previously taught at the University of Sheffield and Nottingham Trent University. He is currently serving as Deputy Head and Director of Teaching and Learning. He is a Fellow of the European Law Institute and one of the Law editors for the Journal of Consumer Policy. He is a co-reporter and the person-with-the-file for ELI’s project on Guiding Principles and Model Rules for Algorithmic Contracts. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of Contract, Consumer and Commercial Law, with a particular focus on the implications of digitalisation. His research covers English, European and International dimensions. Christian’s books include Foundations of International Commercial Law (Routledge, 2021), Rethinking EU Consumer Law, with Geraint Howells and Thomas Wilhelmsson (Routledge, 2017), The Europeanisation of Contract Law (2nd ed, Routledge, 2013) and A Cross-Border-Only Regulation for Consumer Transactions in the EU – A New Approach to EU Consumer Law (Springer, 2012). He has written on a variety of topics in his fields of expertise; recent publications include a journal article exploring the obsolescence risks for UK Consumer Law and a book chapter on the transformation of UK Consumer Law for a collection he co-edited with Hans Micklitz, due to be published in December.