We live in an age of grand challenges, from climate change and the digitalisation of markets to rising inequality. Yet legal systems struggle to respond effectively, constrained by entrenched disciplinary boundaries. Law and regulation, public and private law, and European Union (EU) law and national law often operate in separate silos, limiting meaningful dialogue. My book, Market Regulation and Private Law: The Quest for Reconciliation in European Private Law (Cambridge University Press, 2026), offers a holistic theoretical perspective on the relationship between market regulation and private law, with significant practical implications for a wide range of areas.
Continue reading “[REPOST] Piecing Together Market Regulation and Private Law: The Reconciliation Puzzle”Author: Olha O. Cherednychenko
Professor of European Private Law and Comparative Law, University of Groningen (The Netherlands)
Islands and the Ocean: Three Models of the Relationship between EU Market Regulation and National Private Law
Setting the scene
EU regulatory measures in the field of private law, such as the Unfair Contract Terms Directive, the Mortgage Credit Directive or the Antitrust Damages Directive, have been compared to islands in the ocean of national private law. This metaphor has been used to highlight the difficulties of integrating EU private law into national private law, given their different rationalities. The private law of the Member States has traditionally been primarily concerned with horizontal relationships and justice between private parties. In particular, the individual who has suffered from the breach of a private law norm by another individual can use the characteristic private law enforcement tools, such as a claim for damages. National private law, therefore, is underpinned by relational rationality, even though it may be influenced by policy objectives and have distributive implications. In contrast, EU private law has developed in a piecemeal and uncoordinated fashion across different sectors of the economy as a subset of market regulation to serve various policy goals, notably the establishment of the European internal market. Thus, while this body of law also affects horizontal relations between individuals, it is first and foremost informed by the instrumentalist rationality. Continue reading “Islands and the Ocean: Three Models of the Relationship between EU Market Regulation and National Private Law”