Author: Soumya Jha

Introduction

Cross-border financial consumer disputes (CBFCD) have become structurally complex as they unfold across overlapping domestic, regional, and international legal orders, each asserting regulatory authority without hierarchical resolution. Drawing on Martti Koskenniemi (2007) and Gunther Teubner (1997), this literature review treats legal fragmentation not as a background context but as a causal mechanism producing normative indeterminacy rather than coordinated governance. Using narrative analyses, it traces three evolutionary phases,
including post-2008 paternalistic redress, fintech-driven contractualisation (2013–2018), and the current geo-financial sovereignty phase. It argues that CBFCD have shifted from domestic mis-selling adjudication to sovereignty-inflected exclusions through extraterritorial enforcement, often preventing consumer remedy. Each phase is anchored to a concrete dispute, so that the doctrinal shifts are traced to their effects on the consumer rather than treated as abstract regime change. Further, it identifies five literature gaps whose convergence at the intersection of fintech governance, Global South regulatory capacity, and algorithmic accountability remains unaddressed in existing literature.

Keywords: Legal Fragmentation, Cross Border Financial Consumer Disputes, Financial Governance, Fintech Regulation, Sanctions, Extraterritoriality, and Global South.