Chapter 3 introduces the reader to the most relevant technological aspects of blockchain and smart contracts. Specifically, Chapter 3 presents the technological foundations blockchain and smart contracts are built upon, by providing some basic examples, which could help to grasp how this technology works. In addition, it includes an overview of existing, soon to be developed, or potential applications of blockchain and smart contracts in different fields, in order to help the reader understand how they could affect existing processes or, more in general, society.

It is quite likely that smart contracts, which represent a further step in formalizing contracts, will diminish the courts’ ability to intervene through interpretation. In a smart contract context, it is not obvious that the smart contract can go beyond the borders of the program to find relevant rules (off-chain elements and occurrences), limiting therefore the capacity to use blockchain technology in highly contextualized types of contracting. Courts generally come into play when complexity, doubts, and litigation around them arise. In order to assure the smooth development of automated contracts, the courts must develop the expertise to interpret them and smart contracts need to provide for parties to control real world consequences and be able to terminate the contracts if necessary during and after performance.

The author examines the impact of blockchain and smart contracts on the legal profession. After all, the lawyer is entitled to draft smart contracts. For a few years now, in information technology, the lawyer has promoted the writing of so-called ‘agile’ contracts in connection with projects run by ‘agile’ methods. However, the smart contract, whether described as a contract or simple algorithm, challenges the lawyer by its philosophy (‘code is law’) and by its writers who are no longer jurists but developers. He discusses whether this technology will be ‘killing off’ the legal profession. Before over-hastily assuming this apocalyptic demise of the lawyer, the author suggests to think about the role and the status of the lawyer in his general mission of advice and defense, and considers whether information technology can be a substitute for the lawyer or simply a new tool that could be used.

This chapter explores the themes of procedural and substantive fairness in regulating consumer contracts in ASEAN member states. Most member states have regimes that address conduct by traders that impinges upon consumers’ ability to make free and informed decision about the contracts they enter, with prohibitions on misrepresentation and undue pressure. The treatment of unfair contract terms is less even across the region. Equally, in many circumstances the law that exists ‘on the books’ is not backed up by regulatory oversight. Consumers often lack the recourses to pursue claims of unfair conduct or terms and so an active and responsive regulator is essential to the vitality and effectiveness of the consumer protection regime. Nonetheless, it does not seem overly optimistic to suggest a growing awareness of the relevance of consumer protection in a thriving market economy, including prohibitions on substantive unfairness, or the possibility of a more unified approach consistent with the ASEAN way.

This chapter takes a regionalist perspective in exploring ways ASEAN can protect and advance consumer interests regarding consumer finance. Presently, ASEAN, as an organisation, is paying relatively little attention to the opportunities and challenges presented. The chapter explores some of the ‘traditional’ issues arising at the domestic level, including lenders: charging excessive interest rates; misleading and deceiving consumers; and harassing them or engaging in illegal activity when recovering loan repayments. Emerging issues include the rise of fintech. It offers new opportunities for financial inclusion, but also presents new challenges due to the rise of non-financial institution lenders, including those operating online platforms. Lack of proper regulation of these lenders risks regional financial instability and the exploitation of low-income consumers. Given the pace and complexity of change and the increasingly borderless nature of fintech, a regional approach could best assist with developing appropriate responses. The chapter proposes that enhanced shared knowledge and more effective networking amongst key players within ASEAN would advantage the region as a whole.

What is ‘ASEAN’ exactly? Is it a collective noun for describing ten states in Southeast Asia, or is ASEAN something more than that – and if so, what? These deceptively simple questions need answering to understand what has been achieved and what is achievable within and by ASEAN for consumers. This chapter therefore examines what is meant by the so-called ‘ASEAN way’ – a term frequently adopted by key players to explain and justify ASEAN’s role and existence. It also explores the influences of the European Union’s structures and instruments on ASEAN’s use of formal governance mechanisms and its use of concepts such as an ‘economic community’ to define itself. The chapter also considers ASEAN’s meaning and purpose from a range of theoretical perspectives, including: new regionalism; game theory and reciprocity; collective action; and social networks and the networked polity. The chapter further explores ways ASEAN can become more effective in advancing consumer interests through transgovernmentalism, ‘trading up’ and legal transplantation. Some of these perspectives are adopted when examining the topics covered in the following chapters in this volume.

This chapter introduces the backdrop to the achievements and challenges experienced as ASEAN has intensified its program of harmonising minimum standards of consumer protection across Southeast Asia, especially over the last decade. A key factor outlined is economic integration both among ASEAN member states and with their wider regional and global economies. Yet diversity among member states (demographics, economic development, legal and political systems, NGOs and press freedom) can influence the timing and extent of consumer law reform and implementation in each country. The chapter ends with summaries of the scope and key lessons of the remaining substantive chapters (examining product safety regulation, consumer contracts, financial and health services, and interaction of consumer law with competition law) as well as the concluding chapter (adding proposals for enhancing more public-private ‘shared regional value’).

This chapter explores the interface between competition and consumer policies, law and institutions as it is emerging in ASEAN. It analyses the reasons for the traditional separation of these two fields, both generally and ASEAN in particular, and then explains the case for an integrated approach to policymaking and a coordinated approach to institutional design, pointing to international examples of such approaches. The chapter considers the evidence of integration and coordination in ASEAN to date, and considers reasons for the functionally silo-ed approach that has been exhibited in most member states thus far. It argues that increased recognition of the positive interdependencies between competition and consumer policies should be a key element of ASEAN’s future development, consistent with theories of networked governance, trading up and contextualised transplantation.

Consumer product safety law has become a core element of consumer protection law in almost all ASEAN member states. Reforms began by creating post-market intervention powers for consumer affairs regulators, allowing them to ban or recall goods found to be unsafe; and sometimes pre-market powers, to set minimum safety standards. Yet many general consumer affairs regulators still lack capacity and jurisdiction, especially for pre-market powers, limiting capacity to exercise even post-market regulatory powers and to engage in proliferating cross-border standard-setting networks. The Chapter also examines the relationship between regulators and NGOs, as well as with private litigants who may wish to turn instead to the court system to obtain relief for harm from unsafe goods. Five ASEAN states have enacted strict product liability legislation. Indeed, although inspired by 1985 European Union legislation, the versions in Southeast Asia generally are more pro-plaintiff in various ways. Yet there are almost no court filings. Appendices present two extended case studies: informal networks promoting food standards and safety, and formal agreements harmonising cosmetics regulation.

This chapter draws together themes of the earlier chapters to how consumer protection law reform might be advanced in a manner consistent with the evolving 'ASEAN' way in order to effect real and postive change for consumers and markets. We focus on aspects of transgovermentalism and especially 'shared regional value' as a way of conceiving and advancing an operational mechanism among ASEAN member states that may lead to effective consumer protection regulation while retaining regional autonomy and diversity.