Business Law International (BLI)

As information is digitised, algorithms become prevalent in many industries. They are used in numerous aspects of value creation: optimisation of processes, pricing, risk evaluation and for platforms in recommendations, ranking, moderation and so on. This article aims to address the impact on competition of some categories of algorithms. The algorithms reviewed include those that are most relevant for competitive interactions: those that gather information on market conditions (eg, monitoring or scraping algorithms), those that set a company’s behaviour on a market (eg, pricing algorithms) and those that make markets work (eg, matching algorithms on platforms).

The article starts by providing some background and definitions. Then, noting that in most instances, algorithms make companies more competitive or enable supply to better meet demand, bringing a more efficient working of competition, it examines two ways in which algorithms may entail negative effects. First, they may form more efficient tools to implement anti-competitive practices (algorithms as facilitating tools). This is illustrated by a number of competition cases in relation to horizontal, vertical or platform relationships. Second, a number of recent papers argue that algorithms may change the nature of competition. Because of the increased transparency and rationality of choices allowed by algorithms and data, the nature of the competitive game between companies changes. This author does not argue that algorithms are bad once in the wrong hands but that some of their features may lead the competitive game to outcomes that are worse for consumers.

Finally, the article concludes that competition policy and enforcement may adapt to address algorithms as facilitating tools, notably with algorithmic investigative tools but also in adapting their burden of proof/presumptions systems. As to changing the nature of competition, the approach might rather be regulatory with some input from competition policy. The way forward is the identification of key features that should be avoided or included, the testing of algorithms and the monitoring of their behaviour.

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An element in the discussion around combatting the climate crisis that has so far been largely ignored is how to deal with climate disputes arising from this global effort to reach net-zero. Transformation from a carbon-based economy to one of sustainable energy will be politically, socially and financially traumatic. In addition to funding trillions of dollars of green projects, new technologies, such as carbon capture, will have to be developed.

Arising from this global undertaking, one can envision a host of inflection points where issues/conflicts will intersect with many different stakeholders in the process of implementing environmental commitments. Disputes arising in any of these spheres will detract from the ultimate objective to meet carbon reduction goals in the time frame left. Traditional dispute resolution mechanisms, this article’s author argues, are poorly equipped to deal with this challenge in an effective manner.

Conflict avoidance boards (CABs), a derivative of dispute boards, may provide the basic mechanism to meet these requirements and, when modified to include the techniques offered by mediation, may create a noel basis for both avoiding and managing conflict arising on our pathway to a green environment.

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The Second Libya Conference, convened in Berlin on 23 June 2021, made the reconstruction of the Libyan economy a top priority, alongside the holding of elections and the withdrawal of foreign mercenaries. The recent truce between the civil war factions and the formation of a transitional government in Libya raise the chances of overcoming the divisions of the country, which have impeded economic activity for the past few years. For international companies, there are business opportunities in the electricity, water and medical sectors, as well as in the oil and gas industry.

The recent conflict in Libya is (also) a conflict concerning economic resources. A sustainable peace will be dependent on a swift economic recovery. This article discusses the relevant legal framework for economic activity in Libya, with a specific focus on supply and service contracts, and gives advice on drafting contracts with Libyan parties. It concludes with some suggestions for legislative reform.

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Nepal has adopted a new National Civil Code 2074 (2017 AD) (the ‘Civil Code’), which came into effect on 17 August 2018. The Civil Code repealed the preceding Country Code, which had been in force for over five decades. The primary objective for introducing the Civil Code was to update and unify various civil laws into a single comprehensive, unified code, as well as to adopt and introduce the major principles of common law and private international law that are essential to govern the administration of justice in this modern era.

One of the major additions introduced by the Civil Code into the Nepali legal system is the concept of private international law, commonly known as the conflict of laws. The conflict of laws is often referred to as the ‘jurisdiction-selecting technique’ or ‘jurisdiction-selecting rule’. It is a set of legal principles that provides guidance to courts on which country's laws should be applied in adjudicating a dispute among private parties involving diversity, that is, a dispute involving foreign elements. Conflict of laws is regarded as a complex legal topic in every jurisdiction. The rules relating to the conflict of laws are not always confined to the domestic laws of states. Sometimes they obtain their source from bilateral and multilateral treaties concluded by states in the international domain, and thus are also treated as a source of international law.

Prior to the enactment of the Civil Code, the Nepali legal system had remained in complete isolation in the matter of conflict of laws as neither was there a set of conflict of laws rules nor had Nepali courts ever attempted to apply conflict of laws rules. Now this issue has been addressed by the Civil Code by incorporating rules of private international law.

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• Volume 22 Number 3, September 2021
• Volume 22 Number 2, May 2021
• Volume 22 Number 1, January 2021
• Volume 21 Number 3, September 2020
• Volume 21 Number 2, May 2020
• Volume 21 Number 1, January 2020
• Volume 20 Number 3, September 2019
• Volume 20 Number 2, May 2019
• Volume 20 Number 1, January 2019