Book Launch ‘Cross-Border Consumer Contracts in Theory and Practice:
A Practical Guide to Article 6 Rome I Regulation’
About the Event
We are pleased to announce an upcoming virtual book launch for Dr. Benedikt Schmitz’s new monograph, Choice of Law for Consumer Contracts in Theory and Practice (Edward Elgar Publishing).
Time: 4 November 2026, 15:00 – 17:00 CET, online
The event will examine cross-border consumer protection and the complex conflict-of-laws frameworks regulating the global surge in online shopping. Panelists will discuss many aspects of Article 6 Rome I Regulation, including the historical dimensions of consumer protection in applicable law, the targeting test and consumer definition, the restriction to party autonomy, its ex officio application, and the US American approach to cross-border consumer contracts.
About the Book
Consumers increasingly order goods or services abroad. This book investigates the laws which ensure that consumers are protected in cross-border scenarios. Drawing on case studies from across EU consumer law, Benedikt Schmitz presents a comprehensive guide to the challenging legal framework involved in regulating a continuing surge in online shopping.
Schmitz focusses on what law applies to a contract between a consumer and a foreign seller. He investigates both layers of the conflicts analysis: the conflicts layer, which points at the law of the consumer’s habitual residence or the chosen law, and the substantive layer, which ensures that the consumer cannot be deprived of the protection in their country of habitual residence, even if a foreign law is chosen. The substantive layer receives particular attention. Schmitz evaluates the extent of the restrictions imposed on party autonomy, the inapplicability of choice of law clauses, and the ways in which courts must ascertain and apply foreign law. The book argues that general principles of EU law, and not EU conflict-of-laws itself, require courts to apply the consumer protective provisions on their own motion.
Choice of Law for Consumer Contracts in Theory and Practice is essential reading for scholars and students of consumer law, European law, and private international law. Legal practitioners and policy regulators will similarly benefit from its practice-oriented approach.
Speakers
- Benedikt Schmitz, Assistant Professor of Private International Law and Comparative Contract Law (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)
- Beatriz Añoveros Terradas, Full Professor of Private International Law (University of Barcelona, Spain)
- Zhen Chen, MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
- Jerca Kramberger Škerl, Full Professor of Civil and Commercial Law (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
- Stephen Ware, Frank Edwards Tyler Distinguished Professor of Law (University of Kansas, United States of America)
Save the Date!
4 November 2026
15.00-17.00 CET