The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of Networks, Platforms and Utilities

This book offers a comparative and multi-sector analysis of the regulation of network, platform, and utility enterprises.

New technologies, the climate crisis, the growth in multinational enterprises, and escalating inequality are transforming public services and utilities. This Handbook offers a comparative and multi-sector analysis of critical industries including transportation, communications, finance, energy, technology, and social infrastructure.The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of Networks, Platforms and Utilities offers a comparative and multi-sector analysis of the most important industries shaping people's lives, including transportation, communications, finance, energy, technology, and social infrastructure. Enterprises in these sectors are unlike other businesses because they form the basic infrastructure for commerce and society. Network, platform, and utility (NPU) enterprises tend toward monopoly or oligopoly, and often involve structurally unequal bargaining power because of economies of scale, network effects, special skills, and high capital costs. As a result, NPU enterprises around the world have generally been governed by distinctive legal regimes: public ownership, public utility regulation and oversight, or public options alongside private businesses. The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of Networks, Platforms and Utilities brings together leading scholars to capture the central themes and concepts in the field and describe how countries around the world govern NPU enterprises. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.