It's an apparent contradiction, or maybe an irony, but it's a fact that e-commerce merchants, like their medieval predecessors, often use their own lex mercatoria, or merchant law, in lieu of traditional law.
e-Commerce Communities Employ Medieval Justice
It's an apparent contradiction, or maybe an irony, but it's a fact that e-commerce merchants, like their medieval predecessors, often use their own lex mercatoria, or merchant law, in lieu of traditional law. Online marketplace managers, like those who managed medieval fairs, regularly require participants to change their behavior or face banishment. Medieval merchants resolved difficulties in accord with notions of fair dealing rather than invoking a specific body of substantive principles. As an anachronistic consequently, e-commerce participants might find that the substantive law of merchants is applicable to e-commerce, and e-commerce counsel may, in some instances, want to recommend that clients take this tack.
By
Jonathan Bick
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