BML Munjal University launches Centre on Law, Regulation and Technology

BML Munjal University in Haryana has unveiled its Centre on Law, Regulation and Technology (CLRT) on December 7 through its School of Law.

CLRT is aiming to contribute to the policy discourse through interdisciplinary research and bring voices of regulators, academia, industry, policymakers, and civil society together.

CLRT and the School of Law conducted a two-day virtual conference on ‘Unfair business practices of eCommerce platforms and the need for ex-ante regulation for digital markets in India’ on December 4 and 6.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, vice-chancellor, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, delivered the keynote speech at the conference.

“With BMU’s strong emphasis on scientific, creative, and interdisciplinary learning, the university is going to unveil its Centre on Law, Regulation and Technology that meaningfully combines academic research and policy prescriptions. Through this Centre, we endeavour to provide knowledge-based inputs towards evolving regulatory frameworks that ensure welfare on the one hand and innovation on the other. The Centre would work towards advocating legal and economic regulation that places consumer welfare and innovation at the core of the modern economy,” said Pritam Baruah, dean of School of Law, BML Munjal University.

The two-day conference witnessed enthusiastic participation from both legal academics, social scientists, legal practitioners, and digital policy experts.

On the panel were Aditya Bhattacharjea, senior professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi; Simonetta Vezzoso, tenured professor of competition policy and intellectual property (Professore Aggregato) and senior researcher at Università di Trento, department of Economics and Management; Rajat Kathuria, dean, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, and professor of Economics at the Shiv Nadar University; Francesco Beneke, senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition; Shilpi Bhattacharjea, professor of Law at Jindal Global Law School; Arjun Krishnan, partner, Samvad Partners; Chanakya Basa, advocate and partner, Knock Legal; and Pratik Datta, senior research fellow and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.

“There has been a view that ex-ante regulation is unnecessary not just because the law takes time to catch up with technology, or that law is incapable of catching up with technology. It becomes a more ‘normative’ argument whether the law should be used as these are still not mature technologies and law could act as more of a hindrance here. Similarly, social order can be produced without legal frameworks through firstly, social norms or secondly, through codes like Lex cryptographia which brings transparency and resilience,” said Sudhir Krishnaswamy, the vice-chancellor of NLSIU Bangalore.