Book Launch for ‘Unfair Terms in Banking and Financial Contracts' by Danny Busch and Matthias Lehmann

On Thursday 25 April 2024 the book ‘Unfair Terms in Banking and Financial Contracts’, published by Oxford University Press, will be launched. This is an in-person event organised by the Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College and The Radboud Business Law Institute at Radboud University, Nijmegen.

Unfair Terms in Banking and Financial Contracts offers a thorough discussion of the Unfair Terms Directive (UTD) and resulting European and national case law relating to banking and financial contracts in fifteen Member States. The book also features studies for three non-EU countries (UK, Switzerland and Norway).

Disputes have already arisen across Europe in several areas including foreign currency housing loans, housing loans based on Euribor, and hidden bank fees. The stakes of the outcomes of these disputes for customers as well as for the banks are very high.

Locating unfair terms within the broader European struggle to balance the power of market forces and the requirements for social justice, the volume offers a critique of the existing regime and concludes with a proposal for a common legal framework to ensure a level playing field and greater harmonisation across the EU.

If you are interested in attending this event, please email Sophie Gibson at clc@hmc.ox.ac.uk to register.

PROGRAMME

1:30 Welcome and introduction Professor Kristin van Zwieten (Chair of Sessions) Clifford Chance Professor of Law and Finance; Gullifer Fellow and Tutor, Harris Manchester College; Director of the Commercial Law Centre, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford

TOWARDS AN UNFAIR TERMS REGULATION

1:45 Part I Professor Danny Busch

Professor of Financial Law and Founding Director of the Financial Law Centre, Radboud University, Nijmegen; Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College, and Fellow of the Commercial Law Centre, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford

2:15 Part II

Professor Matthias Lehmann

Professor of Private Law, Private International and Comparative Law, University of Vienna, Professor of European Business Law, Radboud University, Nijmegen

2.45 Comments

Professor Severine Saintier

Professor of Commercial Law, University of Cardiff

UK LAW PERSPECTIVE

3.15 UNFAIR TERMS CONTROL IN THE UK FINANCIAL SECTOR

Professor Gerard McMeel KC

Professor of Commercial Law and Director of the Centre for Commercial Law and Financial Regulation, University of Reading; Door Tenant at Quadrant Chambers, London

3.45 Comments

Professor Hugh Beale

Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College, and Fellow of the Commercial Law Centre, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Visiting Professor, University of Oxford, Professor of Law, University of Warwick

4.15 Closing remarks by Professor Kristin van Zwieten

4.30 Drinks