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Peter Cartwright

Professor of Consumer Protection Law, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Biography

I have three main areas of research interest. The first is consumer protection law and policy. Within this broad area, I am particularly interested in how we protect consumers ( for example what types of law we use and how well they work) and in why we protect consumers in the way(s) we do. My second main area of interest in Financial Services Law and Regulation. Within this subject I am particularly interested in the techniques of regulation (when we insist that firms have licences, when we insist that they provide information, when we require them to have compensation schemes in place for example) and in the objectives of regulation (what are trying to achieve by regulating: consumer protection? confidence in financial markets? competition between providers?). The third is law and technology. Within this subject I am particularly interested in the use of technology as an unfair practice and especially how technology might be used to exacerbate (but also to reduce) consumer vulnerability.

Much of my research has looked at the relationship between these. I am the author of Consumer Protection and the Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press, 2001 - winner of a Society of Legal Scholars Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship); Banks Consumers and Regulation (Hart Publishing, 2004); joint author of Banks In Crisis: the Legal Response (Ashgate, 2003) and editor of Consumer Protection in Financial Services (Kluwer, 1999). My research has been commissioned/funded by, among others, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Financial Services Research Forum and the Law Commission of England and Wales. I spent part of 2010 as an AHRC Research Fellow looking at reputational sanctioning and consumer policy and was earlier a beneficiary of the AHRB's Research Leave Scheme, investigating the protection of the consumer in banking. Some of my recent work has examined the protection of consumers in novel contexts (for example online gaming) and the use of immersive technologies as unfair practices.

I was awarded a Lord Dearing Prize for Teaching Excellence by the University of Nottingham in 2011.

I enjoy discussing my areas of interest with non-lawyers and with those outside academia as well, of course, as with legal academics.

Expertise Summary

I have been Professor of Consumer Protection Law at the University of Nottingham since 2004. I previously taught at Aberystwyth University where I was awarded a Ph.D for research into the role of criminal law in consumer protection. My main research interests are in consumer protection, financial services law (especially banking and regulatory aspects) law and technology and criminal law, and have published widely in these areas. I am the author of Consumer Protection and the Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press, 2001 - winner of a Society of Legal Scholars Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship); Banks Consumers and Regulation (Hart Publishing, 2004); joint author of Banks In Crisis: the Legal Response (Ashgate, 2003) and editor of Consumer Protection in Financial Services (Kluwer, 1999).

I have worked closely with a variety of stakeholders and am regularly consulted on regulatory reform, particularly in the areas of banking and consumer law. My research has been commissioned/funded by, among others, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Financial Services Research Forum and the Law Commission of England and Wales. I spent part of 2010 as an AHRC Research Fellow looking at reputational sanctioning and consumer policy.

I have served on the Council of the Consumers' Association (Which?); the Law Society of England and Wales's Advisory Group on Consumer Rights; and the UK Department of Trade and Industry's (as it then was) Advisory Committee on Consumer Law Reform. I have also served as Convenor of the Consumer Law Section of the Society of Legal Scholars and as Scientific Director of the European Credit Research Institute, Brussels.

I am a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Banking Regulation and the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law. I am also an affiliate member of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, having been nominated for that position by the Institute's President in recognition of my contribution to consumer law scholarship.

Teaching Summary

In terms of subject areas, I am particularly interested in consumer protection law and policy, in the regulation of financial services (particularly banking) and in criminal law.

I have served as a member of the University's Teaching and Learning Board, and Chair of the University's Academic Appeals and Academic Misconduct Committee. I am (from 1-8-23) Deputy Head of the School of Law and Director of Education and Student Experience, a role I have also previously held. I was Director of Undergraduate Programmes in the School of Law from 2004, a position I held until the creation of the DESE role. I held the DUP role jointly with Nigel Gravells for many years. Nigel and I were jointly awarded a Dearing Award in 2011 for our contribution to the undergraduate learning environment in the School of Law.

Research Summary

I have three main areas of research interest. The first is consumer protection law and policy. Within this broad area, I am particularly interested in how we protect consumers ( for example what… read more

Recent Publications

PhD supervision

I am interested in supervising students who want to work in the area of consumer law and policy.

Information about the School of Law PhD programme and how to apply can be found here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/study/postgraduate-research/index.aspx.

Information about scholarships can be found here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/study/postgraduate-research/funding.aspx

Completed PhD Students

  • Hawkey, Didier : Autonomous Vehicles and their Interaction with s.2(1) of the Consumer Protection Act 1987) co-supervised with Professor Richard Hyde).
  • Ezechukwu, Nwanneka: Mobile Payments and Consumer Policy (co-supervised with Dr Richard Hyde).
  • Kaprou, Eleni: Aggressive practices in the financial sector: How to protect the vulnerable customer (co-supervised with Dr Richard Hyde)
  • Hyde, Richard: Responding to incidents of food-borne illness: An empirical study (co-supervised with Professor Paul Roberts)
  • Castaneda-Ballard, Martha: The Reform of Insurance Law for the Protection of the Consumer (co-supervised with Professor Howard Bennett).

Current Research

I have three main areas of research interest. The first is consumer protection law and policy. Within this broad area, I am particularly interested in how we protect consumers ( for example what types of law we use and how well they work) and in why we protect consumers in the way(s) we do. My second main area of interest in Financial Services Law and Regulation. Within this subject I am particularly interested in the techniques of regulation (when we insist that firms have licences, when we insist that they provide information, when we require them to have compensation schemes in place for example) and in the objectives of regulation (what are trying to achieve by regulating: consumer protection? confidence in financial markets? competition between providers?) The third is Law, Technology and the Consumer. I am particularly interested in how technology may be used to exploit consumers, for example, where providers engage in commercial practices which are misleading, aggressive and otherwise unfair. This work is informed by research in areas other than law such as behavioural economics.

I am currently looking at how technology is used against the consumer interest and, in particular, when that use constitutes an unfair commercial practice on the basis of being misleading, aggressive or otherwise unfair. Themes within this include the incorporation of loot boxes in videogames, the use of immersive technologies.

Past Research

Much of my research has looked at the relationship between the two main areas, for example, investigating how and why we use the law to regulate banks in the interests of the consumer. I am the author of Consumer Protection and the Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press, 2001 - winner of a Society of Legal Scholars Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship); Banks Consumers and Regulation (Hart Publishing, 2004); joint author of Banks In Crisis: the Legal Response (Ashgate, 2003) and editor of Consumer Protection in Financial Services (Kluwer, 1999). My research has been commissioned/funded by, among others, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Financial Services Research Forum and the Law Commission of England and Wales. I spent part of 2010 as an AHRC Research Fellow looking at reputational sanctioning and consumer policy.

Future Research

I am interested in looking at how consumer protection law and policy can be used to protect particularly vulnerable consumers, particularly where technology is involved. A particular interest is the use of emotion-targeted advertising.

  • PETER CARTWRIGHT AND RICHARD HYDE, 2022. Virtual Coercion and the Vulnerable Consumer Legal Studies. 42(4), 555-575
  • CARTWRIGHT P, 2016. The Consumer Image within EU Law. In: CHRISTIAN TWIGG-FLESNER, ed., Research Handbook on EU Consumer and Contract Law Edward Elgar.
  • CARTWRIGHT P, 2015. Credible Deterrence and Consumer Protection through the imposition of Financial Penalties: Lessons for the Financial Conduct Authority. In: NICHOLAS RYDER, UMUT TURKSEN and SABINE HASSLER, eds., Fighting Financial Crime in the Global Economic Crisis Routledge. 29-51
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2015. Understanding and Protecting Vulnerable Financial Consumers Journal of Consumer Policy. 38(2), 119-138
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2011. "The Vulnerable Consumer of Financial Services: Law, Policy and Regulation" Financial Services Research Forum.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2011. Under pressure: regulating aggressive commercial practices in the UK Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly. 2011(1), 123-141
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2010. Conceptualising and understanding fairness: lessons from and for financial services. In: KENNY, M., DEVENNEY, J. and FOX O'MAHONY, L., eds., Unconscionability in European private financial transactions: protecting the vulnerable Cambridge University Press. 205-226
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2010. Unfair commercial practices and the future of the criminal law Journal of Business Law. 2010(7), 618-637
  • CARTWRIGHT P, 2010. Corporate Criminal Liability: Models of Intervention and Liability in Consumer Law” Law Commission.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2009. Understanding, Awareness and Deposit Insurance. In: LABROSSE, JR and OLIVARES-CAMINAL, R AND SINGH, D., eds., Financial Crisis Management and Bank Resolution Informa. 139-154
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2009. Retail Depositors, Conduct of Business and Sanctioning Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance. 17(3), 302-317
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2008. Fairness, Financial Services and the Consumer in an Age of Principles-Based Regulation
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2007. "The General Product Safety Regulations 2005: Implementing Directive 2001/95/EC in the UK" Yearbook of Consumer Law. 309-325
  • CARTWRIGHT P, 2007. The Regulation of Product Safety. In: HOWELLS G, ed., The Law of Product Liability (2nd ed) LexisNexis. 695-785
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2007. "Crime, Punishment and Consumer Protection" Journal of Consumer Policy. 30, 1-20
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2007. Risk-Based Regulation and the Consumer of Financial Services. In: RAMSAY, I, SALLOUM, J and HORROX, N AND MOWATT, G, eds., Risk and Choice in Consumer Society Sakkoulas. 277-297.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2006. Enforcement, risk and discretion: the case of dangerous consumer products Legal Studies. 26(4), 524-543
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2006. Reasonable expectations, (un)reasonable assumptions, and banking regulation Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly. 1, 82-95
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, 2006. "Total Recall? The Future of Consumer Product Safety Regulation" Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly. 390-403
  • CARTWRIGHT P, 2006. "The Risks and Returns of Prior Approval by Licensing: the Case of Banking" Journal of Banking Regulation. 298-309
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2004. Banks Consumers and Regulation Oxford: Hart Publishing.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2004. Financial exclusion and the consumer Contemporary Issues in Law. 7(2), 157-183
  • CARTWRIGHT, P. and CAMPBELL, A., 2003. Co-insurance and moral hazard: Some reflections on deposit protection in the UK and USA Journal of International Banking Regulation. VOL 5(NUMB 1), 9-20
  • CAMPBELL, ANDREW and CARTWRIGHT, PETER, 2002. Banks in crisis : the legal response / Andrew Campbell, Peter Cartwright Aldershot : Ashgate.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 2002. Vulnerable Consumers and Financial Regulation In: Society of Legal Scholars Conference.
  • CARTWRIGHT,P.R. and CAMPBELL,A., 2002. Bank Insolvency Issues Insolvency Lawyer. 6, 200-205
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2001. Consumer protection and the criminal law: law, theory, and policy in the UK Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 2001. Optimal Consumer Protection in Financial Services In: European Credit Research Institute and Centre for European Policy Studies.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2000. Servicing and Supplying: A Judicial Muddle Criminal Law Review. MAY, 356-364
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 2000. Regulation of Product Safety. In: Product Liability (Butterworths Common Law Series) Butterworths, London, UK; Markham, Ontario, Canada. 465-534
  • CARTWRIGHT, P. and CAMPBELL, A., 1999. Deposit Insurance: Consumer Protection, Banks Safety and Moral Hazard European Business Law Review. VOL 10(PART 3/4), 96-102
  • CARTWRIGHT, PETER and FINANCIAL SERVICES AND THE CONSUMER (CONFERENCE : 1999 : CAMBRIDGE, [PUBL DATE]), 1999. Consumer protection in financial services / edited by Peter Cartwright London : Kluwer Law, 1999.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1999. Deposit Guarantess and the Individual Bank Customer. In: Consumer Protection in Financial Services (International Banking, Finance and Economic Law Series) Kluwer Academic Publishers BV, Dordrecht, NL. 123-136
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1999. Consumer Protection in Financial Services: Putting the Law in Context. In: Consumer Protection in Financial Services (International Banking, Finance and Economic Law Series) Kluwer Academic Publishers BV, Dordrecht, NL. 3-20
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1999. (Self) Regulation, Consumers and Banking: The Revolution in the UK In: 7th International Consumer Law Conference.
  • CARTWRIGHT,P.R., 1999. The Protection of Bank Depositors: New Developments Amicus Curiae. 22, 27-29
  • CAMPBELL, A. and CARTWRIGHT, P., 1998. Banks and consumer protection: the Deposit Protection Scheme in the United Kingdom Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly. ISSUE 1, 128-139
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 1998. Better regulation in the UK? The better regulation task force review of consumer affairs Consumer Law Journal. VOL 6(NUMBER 4), 485-490
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1998. Systemic Risk and Moral Hazard In: Hart Workshop on Transnational Corporate Finance and the Challenge to the Law.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 1998. Corporate Fault and Consumer Protection: A New Approach for the UK Journal of Consumer Policy. VOL 21(NUMBER 1), 71-89
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1997. Depositor Protection and International Markets In: Society of Public Teachers of Law Consumer Law Group.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 1996. Defendants in Consumer Protection Statutes: A Search for Consistency Modern Law Review. VOL 59(NUMBER 2), 225-240
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1996. Consumer Protection in the European Union In: Malaysian Bar Council.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 1996. Reckless Statements, Trade Descriptions and Law Reform Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly. VOL 47(NUMBER 2), 171-181
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1995. Product Safety, Criminal Sanctions and the Single European Market In: 5th International Conference on Consumer Law.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P., 1995. Product Safety and Consumer Protection Modern Law Review. VOL 58(NUMBER 2), 222
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1995. Criminal and Civil Liability: Tort, Crime and Punitive Damages In: International Conference on Civil and Criminal Liability.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P.R., 1994. Defendants in Consumer Protection Statutes In: SPTL Consumer Law Group.
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "Banks, Regulation and the Disadvantaged Consumer" In: Socio Legal Studies Association. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "The Idea of Consumer Protection in Financial Services" In: Financial Services Research Forum. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "Risk, Reason and Regulation: a Critical Look at Product Safety Enforcement" In: Staff Seminar. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "The Future of Criminal Sanctions in Consumer Protection" In: The Changing Face of Consumer Law. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "Access to Banking Services" In: Society of Legal Scholars Conference. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "Reasonable Expectations and Financial Regulation" In: The Governance of Financial Institutions. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, Disclosure, Information and Regulation: Consumer Protection in Banking" In: Consumers in the Knowledge-Based Economy. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "Money, Regulation and the Consumer" In: Cultures of Money Symposium. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "Crime, Punishment and Consumer Protection" In: The Future of Consumer Law. (In Press.)
  • CARTWRIGHT, P, "The General Product Safety Regulations 2005: Revolution or Evolution?" In: Centre for law and Business. (In Press.)

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