Languages
- English
Melanie is Of Counsel in the Technology & Media Team. With over 15 years’ experience, she is an expert on English and European consumer protection laws. She advises a wide range of consumer-facing businesses, including retailers, marketplaces, subscription contract providers, and streaming service providers. She is listed as a key lawyer for CMS' Tier 1 rated Consumer and Retail practice, and described as "always extremely knowledgeable and commercial", by Legal 500.
Melanie advises businesses on how they might comply with consumer law in practice (for example, in online purchase or sign-up flows, and terms and conditions), enforcement risk, and how to respond to consultations and new legislation and guidance. Melanie aims to provide user-friendly advice, balancing risk and commercial considerations. Specific topics that Melanie regularly advises on are customer return rights (particularly in the context of customer fraud/abuse), pricing, subscription contracts, and harmful online choice architecture (also known as dark patterns). Melanie frequently coordinates advice from consumer law experts in other countries (particularly in the major EU markets), which often means that she can give clients early visibility of country-specific risks that they may need to consider.
She also advises on wider consumer-facing projects (for example, the launch of a new customer offering such as a loyalty scheme, or a business change which has a customer impact) and has a broad understanding of a range of issues affecting consumer-facing businesses, including logistics, returns and commercial contracts. This often involves coordinating advice from other specialists (such as financial services, product compliance, IP, competition and data protection) and other jurisdictions.
