MEANING OF RATIONALE

“a fundamental reason for something”

Asking (1) whether we need consumer protection law, and if so (2) why we need it

WHO IS A CONSUMER?

Common characteristics of “consumer protection statutes”

- The supplier acts in the course of business,
- The recipient is a private individual, and
- The recipient acts in a private capacity

Definitions of a “consumer”
- Standard approach outlined in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive: “any
natural or legal person who, in commercial practices covered by this Directive, is
acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession”
- Also stated in the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection: “a natural person,
regardless of nationality, acting primarily for personal, family or household purposes,
while recognising that Member States may adopt differing definitions to address
specific domestic needs.”
- In issues related to mixed contracts, the Consumer Rights Directive allows a person to
be a consumer so long as the trade purpose is “not predominant” (e.g. a computer
bought for both personal and business purposes)

Issues
- Traders can sometimes be protected by the law as well (e.g. advertising to businesses
and making misleading comparisons with competitors are regulated by the Business
Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008)
o Some smaller business are in a similar position to the acerage consumer (e.g.
expensive and time-consuming transaction costs)
- Schulte-Nolke argues that we should consider moving from consumer to customer
protection in some areas:
o “The notion of the consumer creates a rational distinction between parties to
contracts. It produces gaps of protection in particular for those contract parties
who do not formally qualify as consumers, but for which the same or nearly
all the same reasons apply that usually justify consumer protection.”

ECONOMIC RATIONALES, CONSUMER PROTECTION AND MARKET

ECONOMY

From What Are We Protecting Consumers?

- The risk of suffering “consumer detriment”
o The Consumer Protection Partnership (CPP) defines it as “a commercial
practice or behaviour of a business or trader resulting in harm (loss of welfare)
caused to individuals”
o One of the major causes of this detriment is where the market is not working
as well as it should

Consumers in the Perfect Market

- Ziegel states that principal sources of consumer”s problems come from the disparities
between trader and consumers, i.e.
 o A disparity of bargaining power between trader and consumer;
o A disparity of information between trader and consumer (often called
“information asymmetry”); and
o A disparity of resources between trader and consumer.
- They also provide a justification for having consumer laws

The “perfect market”

- Classical/neo-classical economic theory suggests that if markets were to work
perfectly, there would be little or no need for intervention by the state – only where
there is market failure that intervention might be justified
- The Chicago School are made up of free-market economists who typically believe
that consumers are –
o Rational: consumers act consistently in accordance with their preferences
 The decisions might not always be objectively ideal and the same as
other consumers, but it is what they prefer
 The OECD Consumer Policy Toolkit: “consumers may make mistakes,
but it is assumed that such mistakes would be random and not have a
material impact on overall outcomes”
o Sovereign: consumers are in control of the market
 Consumers decide what they want and make purchasing decisions that
send signals to traders about what consumers value
 Improves efficiency since traders will know what consumers want
from demand
o In order for consumers to play this role, a perfect market is needed
- Elements of the perfect market
o Healthy competition: there are many buyers and sellers, each with a small
share of the market
o Survival of the fittest: there is free entry to and exit from the market
o Product homogeneity: where products are essentially the same in order to
give consumers a choice and to avoid a monopoly
o Perfect information: everyone has all the relevant information about the
nature and value of the products
o No externalities: where the only people affected by the transaction are those
involved (all costs of producing borne by producer, all benefits accrue. To the
consumer)
o The elements working together create demand (consumer) and supply (traders)
in response
- Role and limits of the perfect market
o FMEs argue that we always need some laws
 Private law rules (esp contract) to ensure the agreements we make are
honoured, and to prove a remedy where they are not, seen as a
mechanism to protect consumers
 Property law rules so we know who owns what and when title passes
o Friedman states that the law should set out the “rules of the game”, and acts as
an umpire when it is claimed that the rules have been broken
o However, according to free market ideology, we should not impose provisions
such as mandatory standards or prior approval by licensing of products which
restrict consumer choice
 o But FMEs are sceptical of intervention as it could compromise the main
benefits of the free market –
 Efficiency: in the free market traders compete for consumers
 They are incentivised to improve quality and offer better terms
and lower prices in order to attract and retain customers
 Poor products are driven out by good products
 Ideology: particularly individual choice – regulation typically limits
consumers” choices, essentially replacing them with choices made by
the state
 e.g. the state decides that consumers should not be allowed to
purchase products that might harm them
 FMEs would argue that so long as consumers are informed
about risks and provided no-one else is harmed, individual
consumers, rather than the state, should make the decision
about what they purchase
- Role and limits of the private law
o Scott, Black, Howells, and Weatherill emphasise the limitations of private law
as a mechanism for consumer protection
o Contract: “freedom of contract” – consumers can express and fulfil their
preferences; also provides a framework through which the market can function
 Consistent with the idea of the free market – people have the autonomy
to make whatever choices they want, and the law will respect and
protect those choices
 Where needed (e.g. breach of terms, where a contract is not entered
into “freely and voluntarily”) provide a remedy (doctrines of undue
influence, duress)
 These remedies are seen as providing “procedural
justice”/tackling “procedural unfairness” (more so about the
fairness of processes rather than outcomes)
 Contract law ensures “corrective justice” – i.e. putting right a specific
legal wrong
 Debated area: standard form terms
 According to Posner, purchasers “offered a printed contract on
a take it or leave it basis does have a real choice; he can refuse
to sign, knowing that it better terms are possible, another seller
will offer them to him”
 But there will be cases where there are natural monopolies
(only one supplier), and even where competition seems to be
present, suppliers all have similar forms
 It is more concerning where the product is essential
 Fairness: the law regulates terms in contracts on the basis of fairness
 Aside from procedural fairness, there is also
substantive/distributive justice, which is concerned with the
redistribution of power and resources on the basis of justice
rather than efficiency
o In terms of the distinction between the two, Kronman
states that the fundamental question is “whether the
promisee should be permitted to exploit his advantage
to the detriment of the other party”
 o Ziegel pointed out that people seldom contract on truly
equal footing – one party usually has the advantage in
terms of knowledge, skills or resources
o Thus laws sometimes explicitly allow contractual
provisions to be challenged on the basis of their being
unfair, even if the parties can be said to have voluntarily
chosen them.
o We could even argue that it is the job of the law to
provide fair outcomes, particularly when one party is
weaker than the other.
 Regulating Contracts by Hugh Collins identifies four principal
arguments against intervening on the grounds of substantive
unfairness
o Apparent unfairness is illusory (an unfair outcome
could have a legitimate reason)
o Intervention makes it harder to construct markets
(parties need to know their agreements will be respected
so that they can plan appropriately)
o There is a danger of regulatory backfiring
o It is better to tackle market failure
o Tort: a breach of a civil obligation that entitles another to sue
 Protects consumer”s economic interests in deceit or negligent
misstatement
o Transaction costs: private law plays a role in consumer protection by
providing remedies or benefits, but the difficulty with relying on it is that it
typically depends upon the affected individual to enforce it
 According to Ramsay, "One of the earliest discoveries in consumer
protection was that for many types of consumer losses the transaction
costs (enforcement costs) of forcing a seller to put a defect right might
be higher than the cost of the defect."
 In his work “Ignorance, Injury and Spite”, Leff said that consumers
required “superspite” to pursue their rights when the harm they could
inflict on themselves would be greater than that of their enemy
 Thus even if private law provides remedies in theory, and consumers
are aware of them, it may not provide justice in practice because of the
practical barriers to consumers enforcing their rights
 It has also been argued that relying on consumers to pursue their own
private law remedies produces undesirable distributive effects
 Wilhelmsson refers to the tendency of consumer redress being
pursued through private law as the “individual claims
paradigm”, suggesting that more advantaged consumers might
be able and inclined to pursue their rights where less
advantaged consumers will typically not be (esp where
litigation is involved)
- Market failure
o Occurs where allocation of goods and services inefficient
o OECD Consumer Policy Toolkit: “Market failure is the principal factor
justifying consumer policy market interventions.”
o Reasons for which real-life markets would fall short of the “perfect market”
ideal
1. Lack of competition
o There will be “natural monopolies” where it is uneconomic to have
numerous suppliers (e.g. because of high infrastructure costs)
o There will also be dominance by one supplier, or a small number of
suppliers (oligopolies), sometimes because firms are very good at what
they do and other firms have difficulty in rivalling them
o There will be situational monopolies where you have no real choice (e.g.
when you are thirsty on a train, no choice but to pay for overpriced water)
o Competition law can be used to address this
2. Barriers to entry
o Economic barriers to entry (e.g. it is difficult for new entrants to gain
traction in a market)
o Legal barriers can be constructed by states against individuals, firms, or
products entering a particular market (e.g. why do we insist that doctors
are qualified rather than merely insist that providers of treatment who are
not qualified inform their patients of this fact?)
3. Product differences
4. Information asymmetry
o The unevenness of information between parties (traders and consumers to
the benefit of the former)
o Contrasts with “perfect information” which is rare
o But it is broadly assumed that the better the information that
consumers have, the more easily they will be able to make the
choice right for them
o However, the market cannot always supply information to consumers:
o Some products are credence goods
 There are three types of goods: search goods (whose
characteristics can be identified before purchase),
experience goods (whose characteristics can only be
identified after they have been consumed – services), and
credence goods (whose characteristics cannot be identified
even after they are consumed – medicine)
o There are incentives not to provide certain types of information as
some attributes of the products may reflect badly on the
product/trader
 Competition can fill in the gaps in information to some
extent, but there is a fear of reprisals (a tp might win) and
the possibility of an overall fall in demand for products
(cigs)
 There are third party organisations like “Which?” that set
out to provide objective and useful information in order to
inform consumers (helps to correct market failure)
 But it is difficult for these organisations to protect the value
of their information and advice, effectively public goods
 They can charge for subscription and license the
right to use their logo, but they cannot prevent those
 who have access to that information to share it on
the Internet.
 Consumers have bounded rationality (limited amount of
information they can receive, process and act on) – thus the
problem of information overload arises
 In his classic work “the Market for Lemons” which
examined the second-hand car market in the USA,
Akerlof observed that it is more difficult for traders
to communicate the quality of their products than
the price of their products.
 Consumers tend to be more sceptical of many
claims about quality, and as such will assume that
products are of roughly equal quality and make
purchasing decisions on the basis of price
 This incentivises traders to focus on price as well,
ultimately leading to cheaper, low-quality products
being put out on the market, eventually (possibly)
driving higher quality products out of circulation
 This leads to focal point competition, where they
compete only on limited characteristics of their
products and deny full range of information
 Without regulation, they will potentially be
incentivised to sell cheaper, more dangerous
products
 Complementary products (e.g. printer ink cartridges) have
“shrouded attributes” – their high costs are hidden by
providers and myopic consumers do not realise it, thus
focusing on the price of the printer instead of the “full”
price
 Both the transparent business and the unfair
business lose out despite the presence of
sophisticated consumers as they are subsidised by
myopic consumers
 Traders also try to persuade consumers that their products
are of better quality by advertising their “reputational
capital” (e.g. warranties, money-back guaranties)
5. Product differences
6. Externalities
o An externality is a cost or benefit that affects someone who did not choose
to incur it (e.g. second-hand smoke, pollution)
o Could be eliminated/minimised by internalising the costs (e.g. requiring
compensation) or by the law of tort
- Tackling market failure directly
o Market failure may not be able to be tackled cost-effectively (e.g. it would be
impossible to correct information asymmetry entirely or completely
remove/internalise externalities)
o Could be reduced through intervention, but there is the possibility of creating
or exacerbating one form of market failure in addressing another

A SCEPTICAL LOOK AT THE FREE MARKET APPROACH

Most commentators agree that there should be some intervention in the market, but FMEs are
sceptical of consumer protection law (seen to get in the way of the main benefits of the free
market, reducing individual choice and providing the wrong incentives for suppliers)

However, some see the free market vision as fundamentally flawed – e.g. Cranston, “like the
foolish man who built his house upon the sand, the free market economist bases his economic
analysis on questionable assumptions, and draws conclusions which are suspect?”

- Assumption One: Consumers are Sovereign

o Consumer sovereignty argues that consumers rather than suppliers dictate the
market
o But some commentators have argued the opposite, e.g. JK Galbraith in his
seminal work The Affluent Society, “advertising and salesmanship…cannot be
reconciled with the notion of independently determined desires, for their
central function is to create desires – to bring into being wants that previously
did not exist.”
 i.e. instead of suppliers responding to the demands of consumers,
suppliers create those demands in the first place
- Assumption Two: Consumers are Rational
o Classical economic theory states that consumers are rational in the sense of
acting consistently in accordance with their preferences – they may not make
perfect decisions but generally they know what they want and will act
accordingly given the necessary information and choice
o Consumer law more or less expects the “average consumer” to be “reasonably
well-informed and reasonably observant and circumspect”
o In order to allow consumers to make the best choices for themselves, the right
information should be supplied. This is typically done through mandated
disclosure:
 The law tries to identify the information that consumers need to make
informed choices and establishes what should be disclosed and at
times, how and when it should be disclosed
o Some commentators critique this assumption, e.g. Wilhelmsson, arguing that
the law has to have a vision of the consumer such that there is a reference
point, suggesting a range of consumer images:
 The fully informed consumer
 The information seeker
 The passive glancer
 The snatcher
 The irrational consumer
 The consumer without choices
o But the term the “average consumer” is not entirely objective, e.g. when a
commercial practice is aimed at a particular group of consumers, the standard
becomes an average member of the group
o The link to behavioural economics
 Relating to Wilhelmsson’s range of consumer images, in order to
determine which is to be used and determining the extent to which
consumers really are rational, behavioural economics can play a
valuable role
1. Hyperbolic discounting
 The tendency to prefer small benefits now rather than larger
benefits later (e.g. present consumption of one chocolate bar
over consumption of two in the future)
2. Over-optimism
 Self-explanatory, tendency to over-estimate the positive and
under-estimate the negative
 Has implications for effectiveness of instruments like advice
and warnings as we may be prone to underestimate the
probability of e.g. being injured
3. Framing effects
 Perception of the information can be greatly changed by how
the information is framed
o Thaler and Sunstein gave the example of a surgeon
presenting the risks of a procedure in one of two ways
“of 100 patients, ninety are still alive after 5 years” and
“of 100 patients, ten are dead after 5 years” – the
survival rates are identical, but the patient migh
perceive the messages differently
 Traders who understand framing will do their best to frame
information in a way that is most beneficial to them, rather than
most illuminating for the consumer
4. Availability
 The availability heuristic (rule of thumb): consumers tend to
over-emphasise information that is particularly prominent
o Thaler and Sunstein prominent causes of death tend to
be overestimated (e.g. hurricanes), while less prominent
causes tend to be underestimated (e.g. asthma attacks)
o There is also evidence that we tend to overestimate risks
when an event is recent
 Has implications on how consumers judge risk and shows how
influential the media is – sometimes people can be unduly
pessimistic
5. Anchoring
 Tendency to refer back to an easily accessible piece of
information (e.g. the first price we see)
 One of the reasons pricing is regulated
 We tend to be influenced by price reductions, and thus there is
nothing to stop the original price being unrealistically high so
long as the product is advertised at that price for long enough
6. Information overload
 The more information we have the less able we are to process it
 Firms are tempted to provide excessive information just to
disguise negative information or avoid criticism from
regulators
7. Fairness
 Classical economics assume that consumers act in a self-
interested manner, but experiments have shown that
“individuals care about how others are treated in the market and
are willing to punish firms that act unfairly”
 8. Emotions (inconsistent with rationality or consistent with preferences?)
o Behavioural economics and consumer policy
 Behavioural economics shows that people are not very good at making
‘objectively good’ decisions – consumer policy will have to step in and
move us away from using instruments which rely upon consumers
making their own choices
 But Sibony and Helleringer argue that we should not abandon
disclosure and instead focus more on context and less on content (e.g.
simplifying info in food labelling)
- Assumption Three: Regulation Tends to do More Harm than Good
o FMEs are sceptical of regulation as they view it as counterproductive. But
why? Sunstein identifies 6 “Paradoxes of the Regulatory State”:
 Paradox 1: Overregulation produces Underregulation
 If rules are too tough, enforcers will be reluctant to use them as
their effect may appear disproportionate
 Paradox 2: Stringent Regulation of New Risks can Increase Aggregate
Risk Levels
 It is easier to regulate new products (those that have yet to be
built) than old ones (say, those that are already in the hands of
consumers)
o New products may meet certain stringent standards
where old goods are exempted
o New products are thus more likely to be more expensive
than if the standards had not been introduced
 Paradox 3: To Require the Best Available Technology is to Retard
Technological Development
 Industries have little incentive to come up with better ways of
doing things, discouraging innovation
 Paradox 4: Redistributive Regulation Harms those at the Bottom of the
Socioeconomic Ladder
 Regulation will always impose costs and is designed to provide
benefits.
o It therefore is involved in a re-distribution - does it do
so in the way intended?
 Paradox 5: Disclosure Requirements may Make People Less Informed
 Sunstein identifies two problems: (1) people may be poor at
processing information, which is not helped by regulators
incentivised to generate information overload; (2) if we apply
standards at too high a level, the amount of information may be
reduced due to traders refusing to advertise for fear of their
information not reaching the standard
 Paradox 6: Independent Agencies and Not Independent (may be
independent from government but will be subject to other pressures)

NON-ECONOMIC RATIONALES – CONSUMER LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

We can justify consumer protection on non-economic, equitable or social grounds. Ogus

identifies three main elements to consider under this heading: Distributive Justice,
Paternalism, and Community Values.
- Distributive Justice
o May be contrasted with corrective justice –
 Corrective justice: protecting individual entitlements by providing a
remedy for the correction of a wrong (e.g. tort, breach of contract)
 Weinrib: “the idea that liability rectifies the injustice by one
person on another.”
 Distributive justice: the redistribution of power and resources on the
basis of justice rather than efficiency
 One concerned primarily with process, the other primarily with
outcome
o Consumers are a heterogeneous (varied) group – where there is consumer
detriment, it may be focused on particular groups
 Occasionally produces a “waterbed effect”, where the detriment to
some consumers obscures a benefit to others
 The OECD adopted the language of a structural detriment and
personal detriment to explain how consumers suffer detriment and its
distributive effects
 Structural detriment: detriment arising from market
conditions which limit consumer choice and/or result in inflated
prices for a product
 Personal detriment: detriment arising from the negative
outcomes that individual consumers experience once a
purchase has been made relative to a benchmark such as
reasonable expectations
 Intervention typically provides some form of redistribution; it
places obligations and costs on some parties and also provides
benefits to some.
 To the extent that Consumer protection law involves a
distribution from trader to consumer, this might be justified on
the grounds such as inequality of bargaining power or
inequality of resources.
o Take cancellation rights such as "cooling off periods" as
an example. Classical contract law would provide that if
a consumer enters a contract with a trader, the consumer
cannot withdraw from that (unless the contract
specifically allows it) on the basis of changing his or her
mind.
o But the Consumer Rights Directive allows consumers
14 days to withdraw from most distance contracts for
any reason.
o It might be justified on different bases, but the essential
broad element is probably the perceived
disadvantageous position of the consumer compared
with the trader.
o Consumer Protection and the “Vulnerable Consumer”
 What is a vulnerable consumer?
 In terms of why consumers might be vulnerable, Ramil Burden
identifies two reasons: difficulty in obtaining or dealing with
information; and greater loss being suffered as a result of
inappropriate decisions
  In his work Understanding and Protecting Vulnerable
Financial Consumers, Peter Cartwright identified five different
aspects of consumer vulnerability:
o Information vulnerability (some consumers will find it
more difficult to access, process and act upon
information than others as a result of individual
characteristics or market factors)
o Pressure vulnerability (some consumers will be
particularly subject to pressure in a way that makes
them particularly vulnerable as a result of individual
characteristics, temporary individual circumstances,
physical situation and/or seller conduct)
o Supply vulnerability (in the perfect market there are
numerous buyers and sellers; in real world there is often
a lack of choice, especially with essential items)
o Redress vulnerability (some consumers will find
exerting market discipline more difficult because of the
high transaction costs and other barriers to obtaining
redress)
o Impact vulnerability (some consumers are vulnerable
because they suffer greater loss through making
inappropriate decisions)
 What can consumer law and policy do?
 One element in the classification of vulnerability we have
identified is supply vulnerability: consumers may be vulnerable
because they do not have access to goods or services.
o One response is to ensure that they do, particularly
where such goods or services might be viewed as
essential to meet consumers' basic needs.
 But the market system itself may involve distributive injustice
– the least affluent and sophisticated will often get the worst
deal
- Paternalism
o Consumers are not always the best people to make decisions about their own
interests – we might say that society should take a paternalistic approach, and
make decisions for consumers on the basis of what are believed to be their best
interests
o Gerald Dworkin describes paternalism as "the interference with a person's
liberty of action justified by reasons referring exclusively to the welfare, good,
happiness, needs, interests or values of the person being coerced".
 This is essentially an explanation of “hard/strict” paternalism
 But the entire concept of paternalism seems to run contrary to the free
market and the concept of consumer sovereignty
o There have been staunch criticisms:
 Kant contended that “a paternal government … is the most despotic of
all, for it treats its citizens as children.”
 Lerner observes how consumer sovereignty is a concept close to
democracy or freedom, reflecting the idea of “letting each member of
 society decide what is good for himself, rather than having someone
else play a paternal role.”
 Paternalism views having someone perform this role as justified.
o But some have suggested that paternalism is an inherent part of consumer
protection
 Sibony and Helleringer say that “consumer law is inherently
paternalistic in that it seeks to protect consumers from making
decisions deemed bad for them and offers remedies when they do.”
 Maniet argues that "the consumer, even if we assume that he is rational
and well informed - which is not true in an imperfect market - should
not be left free to decide how much safety he wants to buy and how
much he is ready to pay for it."
o By replacing the decision of the consumer with that of the state unintended
consequences may be created and consumers are potentially put in a greater
risk than they would otherwise be
 For example, if consumers assume that the state has made all products
safe, might they be more inclined to rely on that take risks?
 Sunstein argues that: "Product safety regulation may have a "lulling
effect" on consumers, leading them to take fewer precautions and to
miscalculate risks."
o Some commentators have tried to justify what might appear to be paternalism
on other grounds – Hart casts doubt on whether the decisions we make
actually reflect our “true” wishes (challenging the idea that consumers always
make fully voluntary decisions)
o There is more to paternalism than the "hard" paternalism encapsulated by
Dworkin's quote – B Barry has put forward the idea of "rational paternalism"
where people delegate to others the responsibility for making judgements that
affect them.
 It could be argued that since we know we are likely to make "bad"
decisions, we voluntarily delegate responsibility to others, perhaps "the
experts", to make those decisions for us. And as we have chosen this,
is it consistent with consumer sovereignty?
 Howells suggests that “protection of life is too important to simply be
left to the market…where life and limb are at stake the consumer
understandably favours [my emphasis] prevention to reparation”
 The difficulty is that consumers’ preferences will differ, and so there
will be conflict within the market
 Perhaps democracy could be the answer, with regulators
intervening where they believe that the majority of consumers
would wish them to
 Ramsay appears to argue that the best solution is to make sure
that only “safe” products are sold, even though some
consumers would have preferred less safe (and presumably
cheaper) products
o Libertarian paternalism
 Explained by Sustein and Thaler and their concept of nudging, where
we allow people to make their own choices, but we try and “nudge”
them in the “right” decision
 They say: “The libertarian aspect of our strategies lies in the
straightforward insistence that, in general, people should be
 free to do what they like…[t]he paternalistic aspect lies in the
claim that it is legitimate for choice architects to try to
influence people’s behaviour in order to make their lives
longer, healthier and better.”
 It can be used as a tool of public policy, such as in the use of default
rules (opt-out rules)
 It starts off on the basis that consumers should be able to make
whatever choices they wish – rational paternalism assumes that
consumers want others to make choices for them, whereas libertarian
paternalism assumes that is legitimate to “nudge” consumers towards
what are regarded as optimal outcomes while allowing them autonomy
 However, Campbell disagrees with the idea of “nudging”: “Nudging is
a sort of vulgar celebration of that conception of the working of
government as an elite of clever people getting the mass of not so
clever people to do things that they do not realise are good for them by
means they are not meant to understand.”
- Community Values
o Ogus suggests that “social ordering may reflect not only what people want for
themselves but also what they want for the community as a whole.”, which is
something that a market-based system may not deliver
o Ramsay sees community values as incorporating values such as honesty, fair
dealing and loss-sharing
o Hodges sees trust as central to the rationales for regulation, arguing that “the
purpose of regulation of business activity is to enable widespread trust in
traders, on the basis of which a healthy, sustainable and growing economy can
exist”
- Justifying Consumer Laws
o One point to remember is that consumer laws can sometimes be justified on a
number of different grounds.
 It would wrong to think of specific measures being solely paternalistic,
or redistributive, or concerned with correcting information asymmetry