Premature Obsolescence

Premature obsolescence means that products do not last as long as they should or could. There are nowadays widespread suspicions about the diminishing lifetime of consumer products. Empirical studies confirm these suspicions, at least for certain goods. Various types of premature obsolescence are omnipresent in our daily life. Some products become materially obsolete due to the impossibility of disassembling them, while other still functioning products are too early discarded because no longer satisfying in consumers’ eyes. The willingness to shift towards a more sustainable economy has led to major legal developments at EU and national levels over the past years. However, rules curbing premature obsolescence are highly fragmented across different legislators, legal fields and types of rules. Legal fragmentation creates risks of overlaps, gaps and conflicts. This book addresses the central question how EU and national legal rules currently tackle premature obsolescence and how the legal framework could be improved.

Anaïs Michel studied at UCLouvain, where she obtained her Master of Laws degree in 2015. During her studies, she attended one semester as an Erasmus student at Universität Göttingen. From September 2015 until August 2016, she specialised in European Law at Universiteit Leiden. In 2016, she started working on her PhD under the co-supervision of prof. dr. Bert Keirsbilck (KU Leuven) and prof. dr. Anne-Lise Sibony (UCLouvain). In 2017, she obtained a highly competitive scholarship of the FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders). She conducted her PhD research at Consumer Competition Market (CCM) and as an affiliated researcher at the Centre Charles De Visscher pour le droit international et européen (CeDIE), while maintaining close links with the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire Droit, Entreprise et Société (CRIDES). She completed drafting her PhD on "Premature Obsolescence: In Search of an Improved Legal Framework" in September 2022. Since October 2021, she works as an inspector at FPS Economy.

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