Professor Lawless, in his Response, The Limits of Contract as Product, challenges Bar-Gill and Warren’s initial assumption that consumer credit contracts should be viewed as products rather than contracts. While agreeing that some aspects of consumer credit contracts do resemble products, these contracts also contain other elements, and Lawless thus asserts that “[o]nce we shift our attention to these other elements, . . . our classification of these contracts as products explodes.” Additionally, Lawless raises the issue of regulatory capture, maintaining that Bar-Gill and Warren’s suggested new agency could be particularly subject “to interest-group manipulation, as the regulator’s broad discretion would give them cover to justify most any regulatory regime.”
Volume 157 2009 Response