Enforcing Private Regulation in the Platform Economy

Mateusz Grochowski, former research fellow at the Institute, is co-editor of a new open access volume that explores the role of online platforms as out-of-state regulators. The volume’s underlying research project was made possible by funding from Villa Vigoni – the German-Italian Center for European Dialogue.

Online platforms like Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, and Uber number among the most powerful actors in today’s global economy. The business models adopted by these firms have far-reaching social, economic, legal consequences. Particularly grave is their tendency to develop systems of self-regulation and thereby function as out-of-state regulators. The volume’s authors study the different forms of regulation in the platform economy as well as the interaction with mechanisms of state supervision. Theoretical analysis is supplemented with comparative examination of the interplay of rules platform- and state-generated rules in selected EU jurisdictions. The work focuses on the central regulatory issues of rule-making and enforcement. The two elements can be seen as inseparable aspects of a single phenomenon, one that highlights the changing boundaries between the states and private actors who regulate the digital market and thus shape social developments.

Prof. Dr. Mateusz Grochowski, LL.M. (Yale), received his doctoral degree from the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, earned a master’s degree at Yale Law School, and was an affiliated fellow at the Information Society Project of the Yale Law School. From 2020 to 2024 he was a research fellow at the Institute. In addition, he served as lecturer at the Universität Münster and the Universität Hamburg and as guest professor at Università Bocconi in Milan. In 2024 he was appointed as professor at Tulane Law School.

Image: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law