Legal framework for the sharing economy – Addressing regulatory disruption

The sharing economy enables peer-to-peer transactions on a global scale. Existing legal frameworks fail to coherently address this paradigm shift that blurs established lines between traditional legal categories. It is often unclear whether a peer qualifies as a ‘business’, and, as a consequence, whether regulatory requirements for businesses apply. Hence, consumers risk losing the benefits of government intervention and the heavily regulated business-to-consumer industry may be unable to compete with consumer-to-consumer transactions. Moreover, a peer may be unable to support the cost of full regulatory compliance. The project aims to develop a coherent legal framework to address this disruption of existing regulatory schemes and to identify the appropriate government level (EU, federal, state or local) to implement this framework. The research hypothesis is that reallocating some obligations of providers to platforms is a suitable approach. To assess this hypothesis, the project will map, compare and evaluate how existing regulation in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and California allocates rights and obligations to market participants in the accommodation, transport and finance sector. The results of this analysis will be used to develop recommendations for governments on how to regulate the sharing economy. In addition, the project could inform traditional and new market participants on how to organise their business legally in the sharing economy.