The research analyzes the possibile development of road traffic liability, product liability and car insurance in the face of the progressive automation of the global vehicle fleet. Moving from a historical overview of the rules currently governing road traffic liability on the European continent, the research shows how this subject has developed over the decades, looking for a difficult balance between effective protection of injured parties and economic efficiency. As a result, road traffic liability regimes have some unique characteristics, which are expected to remain relevant even when the global vehicle fleet is composed of highly automated vehicles. The challenges posed by automation change with the degrees of technological advancement. By seeking to enhance the dialogue with technology, the research shows that there are realistic evolutions and utopian prospects, and that the excessive focus on the latter has contributed to an underestimation of the impact that more basic forms of autonomy have on road traffic. In fact, the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) – although they do not require amendments to existing civil liability systems – have so far been developed by requiring humans to adapt to the machine, and not the other way around. In contrast, safety needs would dictate that the software of the future be designed following a human-centered philosophy. More advanced levels of automation raise question about whether current traffic liability regimes should be amended, especially given the fact that the vehicle owner is no longer in the best position to manage risks. Preliminarily highlighting the need for a liberal and confident approach toward innovation, hypotheses for regulation that have emerged in the debate have been analyzed: given the difficulty of finding a clearly winning compromise between protecting third parties and incentivizing innovation, it is believed that the key lies in a simple, technically aware, sector-specific regulation that is adaptable to the multiple mobility scenarios of the future. The soft-law can be a useful tool for managing the technology's market debut, while waiting for evidence to suggest in which direction the technology will evolve and – consequently – the most appropriate civil liability framework.

Since its origins, company law has placed itself in the middle of the traditional pair of ‘enterprise’ and ‘liability’, making it possible to exercise business activity while enjoying the benefit of limited liability. At the same time, this opportunity has always fostered the search for stratagems to fully pass on to creditors the risks associated with the entrepreneurial activity. This is a well-known and multiform phenomenon that we shall call ‘eterodirezione abusiva’, an expression which could be approximately rendered as the ‘abuse of the legal personality’ by the ‘dominus’ of the company. Although the vexata quaestio of the abuse of legal personality has been debated among interpreters for over a century, it does not seem to have yet found a definitive answer in the legal system, and indeed continues to encounter partial and largely unsatisfactory solutions in legal terms. In this regard, the need to investigate the phenomenon originates from the empirical observation of recent case law, where (i) the ‘abusive’ connotation of some ‘risk-spreading’ conducts perpetrated through companies is taken for granted and (ii) contradictory views for its repression coexist. More specifically, the hermeneutic approaches and drifts reached up to this point have given rise to widespread uncertainty around the predictability of judicial decisions in this controversial field. While pursuing the goal of finding one unambiguous solution in this multifarious scenario, the work has been structured in four sections. Section I (Overview of the problem) frames the phenomenon of abusive conducts exercised by the dominus over the corporation. In particular, the investigation starts with the analysis of the traditional theories developed around the repression of the abuse of the legal personality, and the focus is placed on the two hermeneutic paths on which case law is currently polarised: the first qualifies the dominus as a holding of a group of companies, and predicates his tort liability; the second depicts the dominus as a shareholder with unlimited liability of a concealed ‘super-company’, and subjects him to personal liability. Section II (The dominus as a holding) subjects the former interpretative trend to criticism. The scrutiny concentrates on the distinction between the ‘group of companies’ as a legal institution and the different phenomenon of abuse of legal personality, a demarcation which leads one to reject judicial attempts to sanction the dominus with tort liability under Article 2497 of the Civil Code. Section III (The dominus as a shareholder in a de facto corporation) investigates the normative bases of -and the many critical issues arising from- the use of the judicial technique called ‘concealed de facto super-company’ as a means of extending the area of personal liability to the dominus of the insolvent corporation. Finally, Section IV (Conclusions) examines the results of the analysis of both hermeneutic paths in a twofold direction. Firstly, in the current and prospective regulatory framework, the all-pervading dialectic between the ‘effectiveness’ of entrepreneurial activity and the ‘formality’ of company law seems to be solved in favour of the latter. Secondly, a bird’s-eye view of the legal system allows one to ascertain the existence of a progressive and ongoing erosion of the role traditionally attributed to both the dogma of inviolability of the legal personality and that of formal imputation of business activity and liability (i.e. spendita del nome). This observation makes it possible to forecast a potential further evolution of the legal system towards a reopening of the debate on the qualification of the dominus as an entrepreneur who can be directly imputed with liability for obligations assumed in the name of the dominated company.

Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses new challenges for tort law. The ability of AI systems to learn and evolve from their initial programming is capable of generating significant regulatory gaps that law is called upon to address. On the one hand, there is no ex ante safety discipline related to the production phase of smart products; on the other hand, the characteristics of modern AI systems have the potential to challenge the tightness of existing national liability rules. The aim of the present research is to investigate the aforementioned protection gaps and the regulatory tools that the institutions of the European Union are preparing to fill them, in a perspective that necessarily has to consider the transition period that the study of the subject is going through, as well as the way in which the different levels of regulation are able to interact with each other.

Zugleich: Diss. jur. Zürich, 2003. / Literaturverz.

Il lavoro approfondisce lo studio della product governance, regola introdotta nel diritto dei mercati finanziari per mezzo della Direttiva 2014/65/Ue (c.d. MiFID II) e della normativa delegata di origine europea. La ricerca prende spunto da un dato problematico, che si concentra sull’evidente disarmonia che investe il governo del prodotto e che lo riguarda con riferimento ad un assetto asimmetrico relativo al proprio grado di enforcement, attualmente sbilanciato verso un’esclusiva risposta di stampo pubblicistico. L’obbiettivo è di condurre un approfondimento volto allo sviluppo di un congruo presidio rimediale di natura privatistica, rispondente ai criteri di effettività ed efficienza e che consenta all’investitore deluso di godere di un adeguato spettro di tutela a fronte dell’inadempimento del precetto da parte dell’intermediario. I presupposti metodologici si attestano, innanzitutto, lungo la teorica dei contratti d’impresa, che consente di apprezzare la regola nella sua duplice natura di obbligo organizzativo e di condotta. In termini di reazione dell’ordinamento ad un’applicazione assente o deficitaria della governance, invece, la teoria dei rimedi offre la possibilità di individuare la soluzione più acconcia a seguito della violazione di tale rule. Sulla base di simili premesse teoriche, l’indagine si spinge ad identificare dapprima il termine rimediale demolitorio, modulato attraverso lo stretto legame tra il criterio di meritevolezza e la causa nella sua accezione concreta e, successivamente, l’area della responsabilità contrattuale, declinata in aderenza alla particolare conformazione del governo rispetto a produttore emittente e distributore. Una prospettiva, quella dei rimedi, che non dimentica di affrontare il tema della coercibilità anche attraverso la visuale delle tecniche processuali, che si traducono nelle forme delle azioni risarcitoria, restitutoria e inibitoria collettive.