RESEARCH
Digitalisation has long gone beyond cashless payments and the use of apps. It is therefore not surprising that digitalisation has become not only a far-reaching political issue, but also an unprecedentedly explosive legal topic.
Digitalisation has many facets and affects many, perhaps all, sub-disciplines of law. For example, the emergence of digital platforms raises entirely new legal issues not only in the law of housing and public transport, but also in the law of general terms and conditions or antitrust law. The rapid development of artificial intelligence raises legal issues in anti-discrimination law as well as in general contract and company law. Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have implications for the law of money and currency ('bitcoin'), but also for the law of registries, property and company law. The BMJV research project 'Blockchain and Law' (2020-2023) is being carried out at the Institute under the direction of Prof Dr Sebastian Omlor.
The purpose of the Institute for the Law of Digitalisation is to explore the diverse legal implications of various digitalisation phenomena. The aim is to conduct future cross-legal and interdisciplinary research on the law of digitalisation. In the initial phase, research will focus on commercial, corporate, banking and capital market law at the German, European and international level. It is particularly interested in the digitalisation of the financial sector (FinTech) and the legal advice market (LegalTech).
Digitalisation is becoming increasingly important in these areas of law. For the lawyer of the future, it is essential to have in-depth knowledge not only of legal issues, but also of technology-related issues. The many opportunities and as yet unmanageable risks of digitalisation are reflected in new career prospects and a changing legal working environment. The integration of digitalisation into legal education is therefore another fundamental objective of the Institute.
The research is based on a fruitful exchange between jurisprudence, teaching, advisory legal practice and the supervisory authority. To this end, in addition to lecture evenings, a series of conferences was launched, which took place for the first time in June 2018 at the Philipps University of Marburg on the topic of "Digitalisation - Law - Finance". The series of events will be continued annually with different themes. The next conference will take place on 26 February 2021 on the topic of 'Electronic Bonds'.
The conference programme and registration form are available on Eventbrite.
Statement on the Future Financing Act (ZuFinG)
The Institute for Digitalisation Law (IRDi) has commented on a recent legislative proposal in the area of tokenisation.
in the area of tokenisation:
The Institute for Digitalisation Law (IRDi) has commented on the draft of a Future Financing Act with regard to electronic securities by calling for some clarifications in the Electronic Securities Act (eWpG).
This concerns in particular the clarification of the relationship between the obligations of the issuer (Section 21 (1) eWpG) and the liability of the registrar (Section 7 (2) sentence 2 eWpG). 2 eWpG), the consistency of the use of the terms "holder" and "authorised person" in section 3 eWpG, the relationship between individual and collective registration for crypto-securities (section 8 eWpG), the coordination of the eWpG and the European pilot scheme as well as the relationship between the share register and the electronic securities register (section 30a eWpG).
In each case, the statement makes concrete formulation proposals that can be taken up in the legislative process. The statement is available here.
Interview series on digital financial markets
We have started a series of short interviews on various topics related to digital financial markets.
In addition to the interview with Prof. Dr Sebastian Omlor, LL.M. (NYU), LL.M. Eur., you will also find the detailed interview with Dr Johannes Meier.
Dr. iur. Johannes Meier is a former research fellow at the Institute for the Law of Digitalisation (IRDi) at the Philipps University of Marburg. His research focuses on traditional civil law (the first three books of the German Civil Code), capital and commercial law, and the law of digitalisation.
"If you look at blockchain networks, especially in the Proof of Stake consensus agreement, you see that the validator is the person with the most assets, so basically the richest person is appointed as validator. That really touches me because the basic idea was to make this democratic so that everyone, no matter how small an investor, has the opportunity to participate in this system and help make decisions.
You can listen to the interview here.
In addition to his journey into blockchain research, Prof. Omlor also answers questions about the crypto community and explains why blockchain research is needed.
Read the interview with Prof. Omlor here.
