Abstract

This study is concerned with highlighting the main distinctions between conventional rules of corporate social responsibility (Csr) and the discipline of unfair commercial practices. What emerged from the in-depth study of the aforementioned theme is first of all that while the first group of rules serves to regulate relations between companies and stakeholders and has an essentially negotiated source, the second group of rules governs the relations between companies and a specific category of stakeholders (the consumers) and instead it has a legal source. From a second perspective, the distinction between the different types of rules is based on the different role played by them with respect to the market; while, in fact, the discipline of unfair commercial practices intervenes when a market failure has already occurred in order to obviate it, the Csr rules find on the market the main tool for promoting their adoption and their spread.