Prof Andrew Murray NAB 6.08

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Accounting and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is capped at 30 students. Students must apply through Graduate Course Choice on LSEforYou.

This course is to introduce students from a legal background to the specialised legal structure which surrounds e-commerce. The course looks at the specific problems an e-commerce start-up must overcome in order to begin trading, including arranging hosting agreements, designing terms and conditions of service and delivery, and arranging distribution agreements. From here the course will develop to examine the problems of more mature e-commerce businesses including jurisdiction, payment systems (including cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology) and rules on marketing and privacy. Special classes on Online Dispute Resolution and the regulation of gig economy platforms will complete the analysis. The course is designed to act as an interface between ICT law and commercial law and practice in that it examines in detail the close sub-set of online transactions which are clearly commercial in nature.

20 hours of seminars in the LT.

Students should submit an essay plan and working bibliography for the assessed essay. All students are expected to contribute to a series of class and online exercises, and to submit one 2,000 word formative essay.

Murray: Information Technology Law: The Law and Society 4ed (OUP, 2019); Lodder & Andrew Murray (eds) EU Regulation of E-Commerce: A Commentary (Edward Elgar, 2017); Edwards (ed): Law, Policy and the Internet (Bloomsbury, 2018); Tapscott & Tapscott: Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business and the World  (Penguin, 2016); Kuner: Transborder Data Flows and Data Privacy Law (OUP, 2013)

Essay (100%, 8000 words).