Sharing Economy: Legal Problems of Permutations and Combinations Society

The sharing economy is just one of several possible expressions to designate the complex model of social and economic relationships based on the intensive use of digital technology. Constant permutations and combinations allow these relationships to be established through the intervention of a third party making traditional contractual positions flexible in such a way that today’s employee is tomorrow’s entrepreneur, or today’s consumer is tomorrow’s supplier of goods and services. The current legal framework is, in many respects, unable to accommodate such big changes and new legal regulations are required where adaptation of the existing ones proves to be inadequate. This book highlights where changes are needed and where adaptations are required, with a particular focus on the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, British and Brazilian contexts. For that, four different approaches are undertaken, namely the meta-legal, macro-legal, micro-legal and transnational approaches. The study that results from these different approaches enables readers to acquire a general view on the current legal problems arising from the sharing economy, and was a direct result of a research project of the Centre for Legal and Economic Research, at the University of Porto, funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

Maria Regina Redinha is a Professor at the University of Porto, Portugal, as well as the Director of the Centre for Legal and Economic Research at the same institution. Her main research fields of interest are atypical employment, the digital workplace, and the labour implications of the sharing economy. Maria Raquel Guimarães is a Professor of Law at the University of Porto, Portugal, teaching civil law and contract law. A researcher at the Centre for Legal and Economic Research, she is also the General Editor of the law journal REDRevista Electrónica de Direito. Her main research fields are contract law, including electronic payments, e-commerce and consumer protection. Francisco Liberal Fernandes is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Porto, Portugal. He teaches courses on Labour Law and Real Estate Law. He is a researcher at the Centre for Legal and Economic Research. He has published more than fifty titles in the field of labour law.