Bibliographie sélective OHADA

Although Zimbabwe has established several institutions to combat money laundering and related crimes, there is a perception that inadequate measures are taken to apprehend offenders responsible for financial crimes. Institutions such as the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) have done little to prove that the government of Zimbabwe is resolute in combatting money laundering. On the contrary, it increasingly appears that these institutions are poorly equipped and lack the necessary capacity to enforce and uphold anti-money laundering (AML) measures in Zimbabwe. Further, there appears to be a selective application of the law, with one set of rules for individuals or institutions that are perceived as political adversaries of the incumbent establishment and a different set of rules for the political elite. Consequently, the selective application of the law projects Zimbabwe as a jurisdiction that is somehow tolerant to money laundering, corruption and related financial crimes, thereby lowering and tarnishing the standing of the country in the global economic community of nations. This paper provides a regulatory analysis of the AML role-players in Zimbabwe in order to assess their functions in combatting financial crimes. It also analyses whether these role-players are effective and substantively executing their responsibilities therein. The authors argue that while Zimbabwe is well able to effectively combat money laundering through the even application of the law to all persons regardless of their political or economic standing, it is imperative that its AML institutions operate without fear, favour or prejudice. This is crucial in combatting money laundering and instilling confidence in the general public's perception of AML institutions in Zimbabwe.

The Motor Industry Ombudsman of South Africa (MIOSA) is an industry ombud recognised under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA). The MIOSA regulates the interaction and provides for alternative dispute resolution in the automotive and related industries in South Africa. Moreover, the MIOSA is an impartial organisation that focusses on the resolution of disputes where a deadlock has been reached between the automotive and related industries and their customers, as well as relationships among participants in the automotive and related industries to the benefit of the parties. The role of the MIOSA is to make recommendations in cases referred to it where parties cannot reach common ground and are unable to arrive at mutually acceptable agreements following a dispute. This analysis explores and proffers possible solutions to address the challenges that impede the MIOSA from discharging its role and mandate under the CPA effectively in resolving consumer disputes in the South African automotive industry.

To provide protection against harm caused by defective, unsafe products and to promote product safety, the law of product liability has developed as a specialized area of the law of delict (tort). The vexing question is, who should bear such liability? This contribution interrogates the notorious EU development risk defence, which exonerates manufacturers that meet certain stringent requirements for undiscoverable development risks in products that consequently inflict harm on consumers. In particular, it considers the election by South Africa, which recently adopted a “strict” product liability regime with the introduction of the Consumer Protection Act 2008, not to adopt such a defence. The purpose of this contribution is to consider the nature and scope of the development risk defence as contained in article 7(e) of the European Union (EU) Product Liability Directive and to determine whether it was prudent for South Africa to steer clear of incorporating a similar defence in its new statutory product liability regime.

Les théories spécifiques et plus strictes de la responsabilité du fait des produits, qui ont maintenant été largement harmonisées au maximum dans l'UE, se sont développées sur la base d'un modèle économique linéaire. En utilisant la recherche doctrinale et économique en droit, cette thèse examine l'état du droit européen en matière de responsabilité du fait des produits et comment il est mis à l'épreuve par des méthodes économiques alternatives et circulaires de distribution et de production de biens de consommation, comme la réutilisation des produits, le réemploi, la revente et autres retransferts, les réparations, les reconditionnements et la refabrication. Outre une pertinence directe pour l'économie circulaire dans le secteur des biens de consommation, cette étude des questions jusqu'à présent négligées offre de nouvelles perspectives théoriques sur la responsabilité du fait des produits avec une pertinence académique et pratique plus large. Après une introduction générale aux domaines de la responsabilité du fait des produits et de l'économie circulaire, un cadre normatif est développé qui mélange la justice distributive en termes d'efficacité économique avec la justice corrective. Ensuite, il est soutenu que, même dans un cadre économique plus circulaire, une règle de responsabilité du fait des produits plus stricte comme l'harmonisation de l'UE est préférable à la lumière de ce cadre normatif, tandis que la valeur ajoutée de la responsabilité du fait des produits augmente par rapport à ses principales alternatives réglementaires. La thèse étudie ensuite l'application aux stratégies circulaires susmentionnées du droit actuel de l'UE en matière de responsabilité du fait des produits basé sur la Directive de 1985 et son successeur de 2024 presque adopté. Dans l'ensemble, le droit européen en matière de responsabilité du fait des produits se révèle assez polyvalent et sa pertinence dans un secteur de consommation plus circulaire est améliorée par plusieurs des nouvelles règles proposées. Néanmoins, certaines limitations subsistent et des questions d'interprétation sont également identifiées dans la nouvelle directive proposée, pour lesquelles des amendements sont proposés.

The purpose of the Competition Act 89 of 1998 as amended (the Competition Act) is, among others, to promote the efficiency, adaptability and development of the economy as well as to provide consumers with competitive prices and product choices. In line with this purpose, the Competition Act provides that a dominant firm is prohibited from engaging in price discrimination if such conduct will likely substantially prevent or lessen competition, which would be to the detriment of consumers. Notably, the Competition Act has established various bodies to regulate competition and act against any conduct prohibited by this Act in South Africa. These bodies include the Competition Commission, the Competition Tribunal, and the Competition Appeal Court. Notwithstanding the prohibition of price discrimination, the Competition Act does not expressly provide adequate enforcement tools for competition authorities to combat uncompetitive practices in the digital era. Moreover, the Competition Act does not expressly grant these statutory bodies clear roles and mandates on providing consumers with adequate and suitable redress when they have been victims of algorithmic price discrimination. With recent technological developments, electronic commerce (e-commerce), and digital transformation, consumers have become vulnerable to various challenges such as excessive pricing, data breaches and algorithmic pricing. The online and digital markets are characterised by complex transactions, innovative technologies and business practices which expose all consumers, including vulnerable consumers, to different risks. As such, the role of the competition authorities needs to be recalibrated to enhance consumer protection on the pricing of goods and services. To this end this paper seeks to investigate the role and ambit of the powers of these competition authorities in the regulation of price discrimination in the context of digital transformation and the digital economy. This is done to assess whether the competition authorities have the necessary tools of enforcement to ensure that markets are competitive and to combat uncompetitive conduct in the digital economy and online markets.

The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA) seeks to promote the achievement and maintenance of a fair, accessible, efficient, sustainable and responsible market place for consumer products and services in South Africa. Moreover, the CPA seeks to provide an accessible, consistent, harmonised, effective and efficient system of redress for consumers. Notably, the CPA provides that the supplier should not supply or enter into an agreement to supply any goods or services at a price that is unfair, unreasonable, or unjust. This is generally aimed at combating any problems that are suffered by consumers when accessing goods and services in South Africa. Accordingly, various regulatory bodies and related role-players were established to enforce consumer rights and provide redress mechanisms to vulnerable and affected consumers. These consumer protection bodies and related roleplayers include the National Consumer Commission (NCC), the National Consumer Tribunal (NCT), provincial consumer courts, ordinary courts and other alternative dispute resolution agencies. These bodies and role-players are statutorily obliged to resolve consumer disputes in South Africa. However, there are some uncertainty challenges regarding the jurisdiction of ordinary courts and consumer protection regulatory bodies in relation to disputes that relate to the consumers’ right to fair, just and reasonable prices, terms and conditions of goods and services. This article discusses the role of the NCC, the NCT, provincial consumer courts, ordinary courts and other alternative dispute resolution agencies in the regulation of prices for goods, services and access to redress for affected consumers under the CPA. This is done to provide some recommendations that could resolve jurisdictional and regulatory challenges in relation to the price and access to goods and services under the CPA.

Choice of law is a perplexing concept due to the importance of party autonomy, the diversity of connecting factors, and the variety of different contractual issues. The problem of choosing a governing law is complicated in consumer contracts by industrialised mechanisms depriving consumers of negotiation rights. The core mandate of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is to establish a single market for goods and services associated with the free movement of legal persons for economic integration. This objective requires a harmonised consumer protection policy to resolve the diverse consumer protection regimes applicable in state parties within AfCFTA member states. This policy should provide suitable consumer protection mechanisms generally and in the context of choice of law specifically. Implementing a draft competition policy bestows a legitimate mandate on the AfCFTA to negotiate a continental framework on consumer protection as both fields of law complement each other to safeguard consumer rights in cross-border trade. This article argues the dynamics of providing adequate choice of law rules on consumer contracts to inform suitable mechanisms on consumer interest within the AfCFTA. The article discusses the abuse of choice of law clauses in consumer contracts, affecting consumers’ rights in cross-border contracts within the AfCFTA. It suggests a harmonised consumer protection policy to regulate and mitigate these clauses. The article also examines trends in Global North jurisdictions like the European Union to inform a context-specific institutional framework for the AfCFTA’s choice of law rules.

European legal protection of consumer autonomy has been significantly changed in the digital environment, where algorithm-driven systems perform everything. This book focuses on protecting consumer autonomy facing the pervasive and global phenomenon of dark patterns: the expression includes various tactics that manipulate consumers by altering online choice architecture to thwart user preferences for objectionable ends. Overloading, skipping, stirring, hindering, and flicking are examples. Moving from the perspective that the sole traditional information approach is ineffective in protecting autonomy, the adopted methodology considers the multiple concerns revolving around the tight combination of transparent information and fair digital architectural design. Consequently, the comparative study of the new suitable regulatory directions arises across different legal fields, including data protection, consumer, and competition law. The relationship between deceptive designs, the nature of human-digital architecture interaction, and the techno-legal paradigms emphasises which future changes in European private law could integrate legal rules into fair designs to protect digital consumer autonomy effectively. Specific importance will be attributed to the functionality of comparative methodology to include non-legal essential insights (e.g. behavioural, informatic elements) into pragmatic and global regulatory paths and models.

This thesis addresses the problem of individuals’ lack of control over personal data in the digital world. It sheds light on market and regulatory failures that lie behind the status quo and proposes a framework to improve regulatory responses. The two regulatory regimes that are at the core of this thesis are EU data protection regulation, which protects individuals’ fundamental rights over data, and EU competition law, which safeguards the sound functioning of the market and consumers’ economic interests. Despite the existence of these two regulatory regimes, individuals do not have sufficient control over personal data collected by digital firms, whose control over large datasets is a factor contributing to market monopolisation. The thesis argues that one reason for the shortcomings of today’s regulatory framework is that the market failure is composed of a combination of factors, which are currently addressed by the different regimes relatively independently. This dichotomy hinders the development of an effective strategy to tackle the market failure in its entirety. The approach taken in this thesis is that by integrating the two regimes, it might be possible to close the gaps deriving from a narrow perception of their regulatory spaces. Hence, the thesis formulates a holistic approach, encompassing data protection regulation and competition law, designed to increase the effectiveness of the regulatory framework as a whole. Different dimensions of the regimes’ interrelation are analysed, to uncover new ways to harness their complementarity and minimise their inconsistencies and overlaps. The thesis looks at how the regimes can incorporate elements from each other to inform their policies and application of their rules, as well as developing a complementary enforcement strategy. The holistic framework ultimately allows both regimes to better tailor their regulatory responses to the functioning of the digital market and take account of the diverse elements that constitute the market failure they seek to correct.

The thesis contributes to the debate on the EU’s approach to the business practice of resale price maintenance (RPM), which is widely criticized as too strict and in conflict with what is considered to be the consensus in the economic literature. The thesis critically dissects the economic consensus, on which the critique against the EU’s approach is based, by analyzing the empirical evidence that is cited to support the claim that RPM can frequently be explained by the service-based RPM models and shows that there is no convincing evidence that would support the significance of these positive RPM models that predict positive effects on welfare. To support this finding the thesis collects new evidence by surveying the marketing literature and shows that not only is there no convincing evidence that the positive RPM models frequently apply, but to the contrary there is evidence that these models are inconsistent with the real world phenomenon of RPM. Having refuted the service-based models the thesis takes up the scientific challenge that “it takes a theory to beat a theory” and proposes to fill the gap with three price-based models. The thesis offers an analysis of the three price-based RPM models, first from the perspective of welfare effects and then from a broader economic perspective in an attempt to ultimately show that the EU approach to RPM can be justified based on these economic models. All three models explain the situation in which RPM is used by a branded good manufacturer to create the perception of high quality, which is used either as a credible quality signal, becomes a component of the product or is used to bias the consumer decision; they thus enter the difficult terrain of consumer preference formation and of markets for the intangible components of a product.

Defective products cause harm to persons and property on a daily basis. Product Liability law has accordingly evolved as a specialised area of the law of delict which seeks to prevent product accidents from happening and provides compensation in the event that defective products nevertheless reach the consumer market. Accordingly product liability regimes generally have both ex ante components such as product standards, recall mechanisms and liability provisions which are aimed at deterrence and risk-spreading as well as provisions that are applied ex post to provide redress and compensation. Designing an appropriate legal framework to underpin a product liability regime is a daunting task that involves achieving of an appropriate balance between the interests of various parties inter alia those of consumers, suppliers and the broader community. In recent decades many countries have migrated from a fault-based product liability regime to a regime which purportedly imposes strict liability on the whole supply chain. This bold move in modern product liability was pioneered in the United States who has since returned to fault-based liability for design and warning defects whilst returning strict liability in respect of manufacturing defects. After many years South Africa has joined the group of countries that applies strict liability to all defects regardless of their type. Notably the product liability regime introduced into South African law by means of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (“CPA”) resembles the main features of the EU Product Liability Directive 85/374/EEC. The EU Model has also been taken over by Australia when they transitioned to a purportedly strict product regime in 1992. During this process the thesis also considers whether, by adopting the European model, South Africa has taken over a model which has been criticised by some American authors as outdated and based on 1965 strict product liability rhetoric as contained in section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts which approach has since been discarded in the US in favour of the hybrid approach contained in the US Restatement (Third): Product Liability. This thesis focuses on product liability ex delicto. Its main aim is to interrogate and evaluate the product liability provisions contained in section 61 of the CPA, specifically with regard to the pivotal concept of defect and the statutory defences the Act has introduced. It details South Africa’s journey from the fault-based common law of product liability to the purportedly strict regime espoused by the CPA, which regimes operate parallel to each other. This is done to facilitate an understanding of the differences between the two regimes and specifically to aid interpretation and application of the product liability provisions in the CPA that deal with defectiveness and the new statutory defences. In order to obtain further guidance on how the concept of “defect” and the statutory defences in the CPA should, or could, be interpreted and applied the thesis initially considers the general foundational principles underlying product liability law and how this area of law has evolved in the United States, being the origin of modern product liability law. However, given that the South African regime of “strict” product liability ex delicto has its roots in the EU Directive and resembles some of the adapted features of the Australian product liability regime contained in the comprehensive Australian Consumer Law, the main comparative focus is on these two jurisdictions.

In South Africa compliance with competition law has become a major concern for firms that achieve and maintain certain levels of success and growth in the market, as their actions are often a source of complaints and litigation by rivals and competition authorities. With substantial financial penalties often levied against them for a variety of conduct deemed to constitute an abuse of their market position, dominant firms must constantly be aware of the likely impact of their business strategies and actions on both rivals and consumers. What were once thought to be normal and economically sound business practices and decisions, such as cutting prices to attract customers, have now acquired new meanings, with devastating consequences for dominant firms. So, are dominant firms under attack from competition law? In this study I aim to determine this. I track the historical development of competition law in three jurisdictions: South Africa, America, and the EU, with the aim of identifying traces, if any, of hostility towards dominant firms in the origins of competition law. I further investigate whether the formulation and enforcement of certain aspects of existing abuse of dominance provisions manifest as hostility towards dominant firms. While acknowledging the important role that competition law enforcement plays in promoting competition and enhancing consumer welfare, I conclude that significant unjustified economic and legal prejudice is suffered by dominant firms as a result of the way in which certain abuse of dominance provisions have been formulated and applied. I also offer appropriate recommendations.

This is the version of record of an article authored by Michael Trebilcock and published by the Cambridge University Press. The official publisher's version can be accessed at: doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511494833.006