Gustavo Cristiano Samuel Dos Reis (Associação Nacional dos Leiloeiros Judiciais) has posted What a Binary Column cannot Capture Regulatory Architecture and the Attribution of Responsibility in U.S. Auctioneer Licensing on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This article examines whether a binary classification of state authority over internet auctions adequately describes the regulatory architecture governing who may conduct, supervise and answer for an online auction in the United States.
Using licensing data compiled by the National Auctioneer License Law Officials Association, the study first maps twenty-four state jurisdictions according to their reported authority over internet auctions, financial safeguards, reciprocity arrangements, and individual and firm licensing requirements. It then tests that classification against primary law in five contrasting jurisdictions: Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.
The comparison identifies materially different mechanisms of personal attribution concealed within similar affirmative or negative classifications. These include dual licensing with a statutory limit on corporate delegation, a designated auctioneer-of-record, a board-approved designated person, a technologically neutral statutory definition of auction, and a definition anchored in the physical concept of an audience. Judicial and administrative sources confirm that these mechanisms carry practical consequence: in one jurisdiction an unlicensed firm was barred from enforcing its own bidder agreement; in another, the statute conditions any suit for compensation on prior proof of licensure.
The findings suggest that digitalization does not itself determine whether personal attribution is preserved or diluted. Regulatory architecture does, and that architecture comprises statutory design, licensing scope, exemptions and administrative interpretation together. Two jurisdictions share materially similar audience-based definitions and are nonetheless recorded differently as to internet-auction authority, which indicates that definitional language alone does not settle the question. The article does not rank the competing models or advocate regulatory uniformity. It argues that comparative analysis of internet-auction regulation requires attention not merely to whether a state claims regulatory authority, but to how that authority identifies the person or entity responsible for the conduct of the sale
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