DISEQUILIBRATED CONTRACTUAL TERMS AND PLATFORMS’ OBLIGATIONS UNDER DIGITAL MARKETS ACT
The paper approaches the problems of disequilibrated contractual terms and platforms’ obligations under the Digital Markets Act, seen through the lens of the provisions concerning the platform’s legal statute. Particularly, the analysis concerns the specific set of obligations imposed on online networking services and online advertising services, activating particularly in platform-to-business contracts. First, the significant imbalances and contractual asymmetries that the disequilibrated terms generate can encompass economic imbalances which consist of significant disproportions and ostensible asymmetries between the contracting parties, assessed in correlation to the agreement procedures and subsequently, during performing the contractual obligations. Second, we argue that the imbalance in the allocation of contractual risks in digital services contracts may emerge from clauses which affect the parties’ right to resort to extrajudicial remedies to induce the digital services provider to perform correlative obligations. Third, when referring to the taxonomies applicable to economically imbalanced clauses, the paper discusses the reverberations of imbalances, generated by clauses allowing the service supplier to unilaterally select contractual terms without recognising the prerogative of unilaterally cease the contractual relations. Forth, the paper approaches the indirect economic imbalances caused by informational asymmetries manifested at the precontractual stage.
Keywords: disequilibrated terms, digital platforms, Digital Markets Act, digital services, platform-to-business contracts.
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