One of our main activities is organising and hosting Luncheon Briefings on pertinent topics of EU-Asia relations. Beginning with an informal lunch, the Briefings usually last for 1.5 hours, including questions.

Attendees include EIAS members and other interested parties.

Experts wishing to discuss a possible topic for a Lucheon Briefing are invited to contact EIAS Direct Dr Willem van der Geest.

E-Commerce and the Law in India
13 October 2003, EIAS

A briefing given by Mr Richard Jones, Reader in Law and Information Technology at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Chaired by Dr Apurba Kundu, EIAS Senior Research Fellow.

About Dr Jones

For more than a decade, Richard has been a leading figure in the field of information technology and the law. He has been invited by the Council of Europe to work in this area, was awarded a research fellowship with IBM to investigate legal expert systems, and is currently funded to develop ethnic minorities and law networks.

At Liverpool John Moores University, Richard teaches Public Law on the core LL.B., and option modules in Child Care Law, Family Law, and The Law of Information Technology and Intellectual Property.

Richard’s research interests include the law of ethnic minorities, technology and the law, and teaching law and technology. He is a regular contributor to legal journals and is co-author (with Welhengama Gnanapala) of Ethnic Minorities in English Law (Trentham, 2000). Previously Chair of the British and Irish Legal Educational Technology Association (BILETA), Richard is currently Assistant Editor of the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology, sits on the Editorial Board of the Liverpool Law Review, and is a member of the Council of the Society for Computers and the Law.

Briefing Summary

Electronic commerce—conducting business through network technology—will significantly impact the global economy and play a vital part in future economic development. Europe and the USA are currently seen as the main beneficiaries of such growth, but countries such as India and China with their huge pools of technologically skill manpower have exceptional opportunities.

A number of developing countries have pursued policies to formulate consistent legal and regulatory framework to support electronic transactions across state, national and international borders. The development of the appropriate legal framework has required substantial rethinking of traditional legal approaches.  Many legal rules assume the existence of paper records, documents, signatures, physical cash, cheques, face to face meeting and so on. As more transactions are carried out by electronic means, it becomes important that evidence of these activities be available to demonstrate the ensuing legal rights and obligations.

The Indian Information and Technology Act 2000 provides a legal framework so that transactions are not denied legal effect, validity or enforceability solely because they are in electronic form. In this paper, we will outline the economic impact of e-commerce on the developing countries and review the main provisions of the Information technology Act 2000 in the context of contractual, jurisdictional, security, and regulatory issues. The Act will be contrasted with similar provisions in Europe, the United States and South East Asia.

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