SECOLA Conference 2024

About this conference

On June 14^th and 15^th, UCL Laws (with generous support from the UCL Laws Private Law Group) will be hosting the SECOLA (the Society of European Contract Law) annual conference. This year, the theme will be ‘Contract and Power’. The conference will bring academics together to exchange ideas about the various sources, dynamics, and expressions of power that arise within, extend beyond, and bear down on contractual relationships. We will examine the role of individuals, institutions, doctrines and rules – whether these be private, public or regulatory – in enabling, enhancing, restraining or otherwise shaping contractual power. We will also address the theme by exploring how the various manifestations of power may have particular gendered implications or may be experienced distinctly by marginalised or vulnerable communities.

Contributors include:

• Felix Aiwanger (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, Hamburg)
• Susanne Augenhofer (Universität Innsbruck )
• Başak Başoğlu (Pîrî Reis University, Istanbul)
• Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
• Huge Collins (LSE)
• Niamh Connolly (UCL)
• Orit Gan (Sapir College )
• Mateja Durovic (KCL)
• Stefan Grundmann (Humboldt Universität, Berlin)
• Martijn Hesselink (EUI)
• Tom Hick (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
• Mirthe Jiwa (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
• Stefanie Jung (Technische Universität München)
• Pascal Lokiec (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Catharine Macmillan (KCL)
• Maria Rosaria Marella (Università Roma Tre)
• Giovanni Marini (Università di Perugia)
• Francesco Mezzanotte (Università Roma Tre)
• Lucinda Miller (UCL)
• Pietro Sirena (Università Bocconi, Milano)
• Lyn Tjon Soei Len (Ohio State University, Columbus) 

The full programme (subject to change)

	FRIDAY 14 JUNE
9:00	Registration and refreshments
9:30	Welcome Lucinda Miller (University College London – Member of the Executive Board of SECOLA) Pietro Sirena (Università Bocconi, Milano – President of SECOLA)
9:45	Panel I: Scene Setting Introductory remarks Lucinda Miller From the Law of Contract to the Law of Power? Pascal Lokiec (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Discussion
11:00	Coffee Break
11:30	Panel II: Intimate Relationships and Contractual Power Chair: Catharine Macmillan (Kings College London) Contract law, Intimate Relations, and the Struggle for Recognition Mirthe Jiwa (Universiteit van Amsterdam) Duress Law and Power Orit Gan (Sapir College) Undue Influence and Power Imbalances in Intimate Relationships Niamh Connolly (University College London) Discussion
13:00	Lunch Break
14:15	Panel III: Technology and Contractual Power Chair: Başak Başoğlu (Pîrî Reis University, Istanbul) Contract and Power in the Age of AI: Discrimination through the use of algorithms and fundamental rights impact assessments Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) AI and the Power to Conclude Contracts Mateja Durovic (King’s College London) Technological power, Planned Obsolescence and Contractual Remedies Francesco Mezzanotte (Università Roma Tre) Discussion
15:45	Coffee break
16:15	Panel IV: Power at the Negotiation Stage Chair: Hugh Collins (LSE - Honorary President of SECOLA) No-Contract Law and Power Tom Hick (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) Power in Labour Contract Negotiations: The restriction of freedom of negotiation to close the gender pay gap Stefanie Jung (Technische Universität München) Discussion
19:00	Conference Dinner
	SATURDAY 15 JUNE
8:30	Refreshments on arrival
9:00	General Assembly
9:30	Panel V: Intersectionality, Marginalisation, and (In)justice Chair: Pietro Sirena Contracting with Nature: Can right-holding counter human power in contract law? Felix Aiwanger (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, Hamburg) The Power of the Contract Outside the Contract: Third party litigation funding and green contract law Susanne Augenhofer (Universität Innsbruck) Discussion
11:00	Coffee break
11:30	Panel VI: Power Dynamics in Unexpected Sites Chair: Stefan Grundmann (Humboldt Universität, Berlin – Honorary President of SECOLA) European Contract Law and Intersectionality: Three strategies Martijn Hesselink (European University Institute) Lyn Tjon Soei Len (Ohio State University, Columbus) The Stakes of Contract Law: Identities and distribution in consumer contracts and gender-related transactions Maria Rosaria Marella (Università Roma Tre) Giovanni Marini (Università di Perugia)
12:30	Discussion and conclusions
13:00	End of conference

About the speakers, chairs and commentators

Panel I: Scene Setting

Introductory remarks

Lucinda Miller (University College London – Member of the Executive Board of SECOLA)

From the Law of Contract to the Law of Power?

Pascal Lokiec (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Pascal Lokiec is Professor at Sorbonne University and President of the French Association for labour law and  social security law since 2019. He is regularly consulted as an expert for labour law. Among several books, he is the author of  “contract of power”, dealing with the transformations of private law.

Panel II: Intimate Relationships and Contractual Power

Chair: Catharine Macmillan (Kings College London)

Professor Catharine MacMillan is a Professor of Private Law and Vice Dean (Academic staffing) at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London.   Her research is concerned with modern English contract law and doctrine and, also, modern English legal history.       

Contract law, Intimate Relations, and the Struggle for Recognition

Mirthe Jiwa (Universiteit van Amsterdam)

Mirthe Jiwa is a lecturer in Private Law at the University of Amsterdam and a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Centre for Transformative Private Law.

Duress Law and Power

Orit Gan (Sapir College)

Orit Gan is a Senior Lecturer at Sapir College School of Law. Her principal areas of writing and teaching include contract law, contract law theories, and feminist legal theories.

Undue Influence and Power Imbalances in Intimate Relationships

Niamh Connolly (University College London) 

Dr Niamh Connolly is an Associate Professor at University College London, where she teaches and conducts research in contract law and unjust enrichment law. Her undergraduate study combining common law and French law sparked her continuing interest in comparative perspectives.

Panel III: Technology and Contractual Power

Chair: Başak Başoğlu (Pîrî Reis University, Istanbul)

Başak Başoğlu is Associate Professor of Civil Law at the Law School of Pîrî Reis University (Istanbul). Her research focuses on contract law, tort law, property law, family law, digital law and environmental law. She serves as the Secretary General of SECOLA and a Member of the Council of the ELI as well as Co-Chair of the its Fundraising Committee and its Turkish Hub.

Contract and Power in the Age of AI: Discrimination through the use of algorithms and fundamental rights impact assessments

Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi is a full professor at the University of Groningen, Faculty of Law. She holds the ‘Law and Governance’ chair and is the Academic Director of the Centre of Expertise “Rethinking Public Interests in Private Relationships” (REPP).

AI and the Power to Conclude Contracts

Mateja Durovic (King’s College London)

Dr. Mateja Durovic is Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Technology, Ethics, Law and Society (TELOS) at King’s College London, where he first worked as lecturer and then as a reader in law. Previous to this, he was an Assistant Professor (2015‐2017) at the School of Law, City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Mateja Durovic holds a PhD and LLM degrees from the European University Institute, Italy, LLM degree from the University of Cambridge, UK, and LLB degree from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. Dr. Durovic was a Post‐Doc Research Associate at the EUI, Italy (2014-2015), Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School, USA (2011), and at the Max Planck Institute of Private International and Comparative Law, Hamburg, Germany (2010). Dr. Durovic worked for the Legal Service of the European Commission, as well as a consultant for the European Commission, World Bank, GIZ, BEUC and the United Nations. The work of Dr. Durovic was published in leading law journals and by most prominent publishers. He is a member of the European Law Institute, Society of Legal Scholars and Society for European Contract Law.

Technological power, Planned Obsolescence and Contractual Remedies

Francesco Mezzanotte (Università Roma Tre)

Francesco Mezzanotte is associate professor of Private Law at the University of Roma Tre. He holds a Ph.D. in Law and Economics from the University of Siena. He has taught as Adjunct Professor at Nova Southeastern University (FL, USA) and at Bocconi University in Milan.

Panel IV: Power at the Negotiation Stage

Chair: Hugh Collins (LSE - Honorary President of SECOLA)

Hugh Collins studied law at Oxford and Harvard.  He is currently Cassel Chair of Commercial Law at the London School of Economics, and Emeritus Vinerian Professor of English Law at All Souls College, Oxford.  He was one of the founders of SECOLA and the European Review of Contract Law.

No-Contract Law and Power

Tom Hick (MPI Hamburg/Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Tom Hick is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for comparative and international private law in Hamburg. He wrote his PhD dissertation, A European Structure for ‘no-contract law’ in the 21st Century, at the KU Leuven.

Power in Labour Contract Negotiations: The restriction of freedom of negotiation to close the gender pay gap

Stefanie Jung (Technische Universität München)

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Jung is Professor of Corporate Law at the Technical University of Munich at the Heilbronn campus and holds a Visiting Fellowship at the Classical Liberal Institute (New York University, USA) upon invitation by Prof. Dr. h.c., Dr. h.c. Richard Epstein.

Panel V: Intersectionality, Marginalisation, and (In)justice

Chair: Pietro Sirena (Università Bocconi, Milano – President of SECOLA)

Pietro Sirena is a Full Professor at Bocconi University. He has been Dean of Bocconi University’s School of Law since 2018. He also serves as the Treasurer of the ELI). Sirena is a member of several associations and boards of journals. His research areas include consumer protection, particularly in European private law, banking law and unjustified enrichment and restitution.

Contracting with Nature: Can right-holding counter human power in contract law?

Felix Aiwanger (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, Hamburg) 

Dr. Felix Aiwanger is Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. Previously, he held positions as research assistant at the University of Munich and as legal advisor to the State Animal Protection Commissioner of Berlin.

The Power of the Contract Outside the Contract: Third party litigation funding and green contract law

Susanne Augenhofer (Universität Innsbruck)

Susanne Augenhofer has been a full Professor of Law at the University of Innsbruck, Austria since 2020. In 2021, she was appointed as Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School where she also graduated from the LL.M. program and as a fellow at the Civil Justice Center at the NYU School of Law. She currently serves as a Member of the Council of the ELI as well as a Co-Chair of the ELI Austrian Hub and as a member of the Advisory Group on Consumer Policy of the EC. Her research areas include transnational consumer law as well as questions of (aggregated) enforcement.

Panel VI: Power Dynamics in Unexpected Sites

Chair: Stefan Grundman (Humboltd Universität, Berlin – Honorary President of SECOLA)

European Contract Law and Intersectionality: Three strategies

Martijn Hesselink (European University Institute)

Lyn Tjon Soei Len (Ohio State University, Columbus)

Lyn Tjon Soei Len is a feminist legal scholar at the Ohio State University and the Chair of the Board of Bureau Clara Wichmann – a feminist strategic litigation organization in the Netherlands.

The Stakes of Contract Law: Identities and distribution in consumer contracts and gender-related transactions

Maria Rosaria Marella (Università Roma Tre)

Maria Rosaria Marella is full professor of private law at the University of RomaTre, and has long been coordinator of the PhD Program in Legal Science at the University of Perugia.

She is the editor of the "Rivista critica del diritto privato", founded by Stefano Rodotà. She is one of the founding members of the feminist association Giudit (Giuriste d’Italia). She is corrispondante à l’étranger of the LIER-FYT-EHESS, Paris. Her most recent research work focuses on the family, property, the commons, the urban space and feminist legal theories. Among her latest publications: “The Law of Social Reproduction”, feminists@law, Vol. 12, No 2 (2023); “The Law of the Urban Common(s)” in South Atlantic Quarterly 118:4, October 2019; “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Sulle possibilità di un’analisi giuridica queer”, in “Politica del diritto”, vol. XLVIII, n. 3, settembre 2017, pp. 383-413; “The Commons as a Legal Concept”, in Law Critique (2017) 28:61–86; “Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di famiglia” (Laterza, 2014, con G. Marini); “Oltre il pubblico e il privato. Per un diritto dei beni comuni” (ombre corte, 2012).

Giovanni Marini (Università di Perugia)

Giovanni Marini (J.D. Rome, LMC Michigan Law School, S.J..D.) is Full Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Perugia (Italy), he is Co-editor of the Comparative Law Review and holds positions in international institutions and law reviews. He has been Visiting Professor in the United States, Canada, Colombia, France. His main publications are in Italian, English and Spanish and concern comparative legal methods, critical thought, contracts and torts.

Board Members

Jacobien Rutgers is professor of European Private Law at the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam). Her research focuses on the interaction between national private law, European law and private international law. She has a particular interest in (i) contract law as an instrument to organize the welfare state and (ii) the effect of the digital society on contract law and the role of standard terms in this respect.

Fees and Booking

To register for the conference and for the full conference programme please find full details here https://www.secola.org/contract-and-power-2/

Queries

If you have any queries about this conference, please contact christina.giannakopoulou.12@ucl.ac.uk and basakbasoglu@gmail.com

Image by Christian Lue on Unsplash