The EU - Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act

To keep up with and regulate the #digitalrevolution, the EU Parliament on the 5th of July 2022 adopted the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, together forming the ‘Digital Services Package’. The political agreement on the new law was reached on 24 March 2022 by the European Parliament and the Council (representing the 27 EU Member States). (link)

This package is meant to regulate the digital space and includes other legislative proposals like

•  the Artificial Intelligence Act, 
• the Data Governance Act, and 
• the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), and 
• more than 15 different Regulations and Directives in the coming years.

The DMA and DSA together establish an ex-ante system of regulation to address the anti-competitive behavior of major digital platforms. Such ex-ante regulation is unlike ordinary competition law, which normally allows only ex-post investigations and remedies.

DMA will impose a stringent regulatory regime on large online platforms (so-called “gatekeepers”) and give the European Commission new enforcement powers, including the power to impose severe fines (up to 10% of the total worldwide revenue) and remedies for non-compliance, both in the European Single Market and globally. (link)

Andreas Schwab (EPP, DE), the rapporteur from Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, speaking about the negotiations amongst the EU lawmakers said in a press release:

"The agreement ushers in a new era of tech regulation worldwide. The Digital Markets Act puts an end to the ever-increasing dominance of Big Tech companies. From now on, they must show that they also allow for fair competition on the internet. The new rules will help enforce that basic principle. Europe is thus ensuring more competition, more innovation, and more choice for users.

With the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Europe is setting standards for how the digital economy of the future will function. It will now be up to the European Commission to implement the new rules quickly.

As the European Parliament, we have made sure that the DMA will deliver tangible results immediately: consumers will get the choice to use the core services of Big Tech companies such as browsers, search engines or messaging, and all that without losing control over their data.

Above all, the law avoids any form of overregulation for small businesses. App developers will get completely new opportunities, small businesses will get more access to business-relevant data and the online advertising market will become fairer."

Expected to be effective as early as October 2022, the DMA mandates the gatekeepers to comply with the respective obligations and prohibitions by February 2024.

Once it comes into force, the DMA is set to revolutionize the way in which so-called Big Tech is regulated in the EU, shifting toward ex-ante rulemaking and away from traditional after-the-fact enforcement.

The DMA only places obligations on “gatekeepers,” which are companies that create bottlenecks between businesses and consumers and have an entrenched position in digital markets. The DMA’s threshold is very high: companies will only be hit by the rules if they have an annual turnover of €7.5 billion within the EU or a worldwide market valuation of €75 billion. Gatekeepers must also have at least 45 million monthly individual end-users and 100,000 business users. Finally, gatekeepers must control one or more “core platform services” such as “marketplaces and app stores, search engines, social networking, cloud services, advertising services, voice assistants and web browsers.” In practice, this will almost certainly include Meta (Facebook), Apple, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, and possibly a few others. (link)

While the DMA will hold online platforms "responsible for their actions" and "ensure fair competition online, more convenience for consumers and new opportunities for small businesses, the Digital Services Act applies to a wide range of online intermediaries, which include services such as internet service providers, cloud services, messaging, marketplaces, or social networks.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to create a safer digital space in which users’ rights are protected, including rules to tackle illegal content online, enhance the accountability and transparency of algorithms, and deal with content moderation and targeted advertising.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Big Tech bills lined up before Congress, are the Open App Markets Act, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, and the ACCESS Act, which also seeks to impose a set of requirements and restrictions on Big Tech and to give space for competition. (link)

India's Drone Regulations 1.0 announced

Flying of Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) or in common parlance, drones, will be legal across India from December 1, 2018. The Rules announced are the first in the series and thus titled Regulations 1.0. 

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has finalised a national drone policy, and has fixed parameters - including height - for drone flights. From the outset the policy outlines a No Drone Zones. The regulation defines "No Drone Zones" as areas around airports, near international border, Vijay Chowk in Delhi, State Secretariat Complex in state capitals, strategic locations, vital military installations and such.

Owners and pilots will have to be registered, and permission will be required for each flight. Users will need to apply for permission on an app and digital permits will be given instantly through an automated process.

During daytime flights, drones can be flown to a height of up to 400 ft. The use of drones by civilians is governed by the Directorate General of Civilian Aviation.

The new drone policy has a huge digital root. Instead of simply digitizing a paper-based process for registering and operating drones, India has formulated an all-digital process. The Digital Sky Platform is the first-of-its-kind national unmanned traffic management (UTM) platform that implements "no permission, no takeoff" (NPNT).

As per this rule, users will be required to do a one-time registration of their drones, pilots and owners. For every flight (apart for the nano category), users will be required to ask for permission on a mobile app. Once a request is filed on the app an automated process would permit or deny the request instantly.

For flying in controlled Airspace, filing of flight plan and obtaining Air Defence Clearance (ADC) /Flight Information Centre (FIC) number shall be necessary.

Source: https://m.businesstoday.in/story/flying-drones-to-be-legal-in-india-from-december-1/1/281690.html

My Quora Answer about Action against Bank Officers

My Quora Answer to:

What sort of legal action can be taken against bank officers for continuously ignoring unfair trade practices complaints? What sort of legal action can be taken against bank corporate office for not taking any action against it's own officers?

If your bank does not address your complaint within a month, you can approach the banking ombudsman. This is a senior official appointed by the Reserve Bank of India to redress customer complaints against deficiency in banking services, as per its scheme introduced in 1995. All scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and scheduled primary cooperative banks are covered under the scheme. So far, there are 15 ombudsmen, whose offices are located mostly in state capitals. Their addresses and contact details are available on the RBI website. You have to file the complaint at the office of the ombudsman under whose jurisdiction your bank branch is located. The grievances relating to credit cards and other types of services with centralised operations are to be filed with the ombudsman in whose territorial jurisdiction the billing address of the customer is located. You can put it down on a plain paper, send an e-mail, or fill the complaint form on the RBI website. There are no charges for filing a complaint.

Source: How to file a complaint against your bank

The Banking Ombudsman Scheme is an expeditious and inexpensive forum for bank customers for resolution of complaints relating to certain services rendered by banks. The Banking Ombudsman Scheme is introduced under Section 35 A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 by RBI with effect from 1995. Presently the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006 (As amended upto July 1, 2017) is in operation. [1] The addresses of the Ombudsman are here : link . Before filing the complaint, have a look at the types of the cases handled by the Banking Ombudsman, listed here.

Hope this answers your question.

Footnotes

[1] Frequently Asked Questions

Maharashtra State Authority to hear complaints against Builders - country first

With complaints against Builders riding in numbers, the Maharashtra State Government has decided to constitute a Housing Regulatory Authority to safeguard the interests of homebuyers. 

The authority will be a quasi-judicial body and resolve disputes related to the housing sector. Four benches are likely to be established to hear the cases at different cities in the state.

With this decision, Maharashtra, with the highest ratio of urbanisation and real estate activities in the country, will become the first state to constitute such an authority,

The Maharashtra Housing (Regulation and Development) 2012 was passed two years ago and Presidential assent came in 2014.

The deadline to frame rules for the authority is October 31 and the process is underway.

An officer attached with the housing department, said, 

"There are over 30,000 disputes pending before various courts and forums regarding alleged malpractices by developers, Most of the complaints from Mumbai and Pune are because of the high density of housing construction activities. After drafting the rules, objections and suggestions will be invited from the people to make more reforms before constituting the body."

"The state has received the official nod from the Centre to set up its own regulatory authority for the state. We are in the process of forming rules and regulations after which the authority will come into existence," he added.

Source: http://www.punemirror.in/pune/civic/Govt-body-to-solve-homebuyers-woes/articleshow/54299390.cms

Cleaning the Bar - Bar Council of India

Last year, the law news website Legally India revealed that nearly 30% of India's 76,000 lawyers were fake -- they were simply not eligible to enrol as advocates under the Advocates Act, 1961, the law that governs the legal profession in this country.

Legally India also pointed out inadequacies in how legal education was being imparted, and emphasised the need to make the All India Bar Examination, a qualifying test introduced in 2010, more robust. It laid the blame for the mess largely at BCI's door - for being lackadaisical in the verification process, and letting corrupt practices go unpunished.

The issue of fake lawyers concerns the legal profession, of course, but it's primarily one about citizens' fundamental right to legal representation. An integral part of this right is that a lawyer must be competent

A familiar sight greets litigants outside almost every court in India: lawyers standing on the premises, sometimes even spilling on to the streets, hawking their wares.

In lawyers' lingo, they are referred to as "out-standing lawyers", since they hardly ever see the inside of a courtroom.

Not only do these lawyers do little more than draft affidavits, many are crooks and frauds, as an ongoing case in the Supreme Court has revealed.

The Bar Council of India's Certificate and Place of Practice Rules, 2015 aims to change all this.


Source - http://www.catchnews.com/india-news/fake-lawyers-crooks-in-black-coats-face-supreme-court-crackdown-1463596790.html

The Land Acquisition Law Confusion

 

After a long drawn debate, and discussion last year, dcoumented at -http://www.prsindia.org/pages/land-acquisition-debate-139/ the Confusion of the Land Acquisition Law/s Continues...

Nov 20, 2014

Law minister Sadananda Gowda on Wednesday ruled out taking the ordinance route for any amendments in the Land Acquisition Act <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Acquisition_Act_1894>> though he said the government was in favour of bringing some changes.  "There is a proposal. The call has to be taken by the concerned (rural development) ministry," he said, without elaborating on the proposed changes.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had last week said the government will amend the "tough" land acquisition law even without opposition support as it looks to restore confidence in the economy. The government is in favour of consulting other parties and developing a consensus on the proposed changes. Some states have already expressed concern and cited difficulties in acquiring land for infrastructure projects with stringent clause such as obtaining consent of at least 70% of affected landowners in case of PPP projects and 80% in case of private projects.
Source - Times of India

Nov 9, 2014

The Land Acquisition Bill, which was passed during the previous UPA regime with then opposition BJP supporting it, seeks to set a fair compensation for farm land being taken over for industrial projects. But the law has made land acquisition very difficult, slowing projects. States too have come out openly against the law saying it had hurt the process of acquiring land for infrastructure projects. Jaitley said that the "obstacles" to the land laws would have to be first removed in order to implement the concept of smart cities in India.

In Budget 2014-15, Jaitley had proposed an allocation of Rs 7,060 crore for developing 100 'smart cities' in the country. The Rural Development Ministry has already suggested a number of amendments to the Land Acquisition Act that will water down provisions such as mandatory consent of at least 70% locals for acquiring land for PPP projects, and 80 per cent for private projects. Jaitley also said that the government's disinvestment programme will "unfold" in the next couple of days.

Source - DNA India

July 15, 2014.

The government is keen on bringing changes in the new Land Acquisition Act to make it more industry friendly.  The government may also convene an all-party meet to evolve a consensus so that a Bill to amend the one-year-old law could be introduced in the ongoing session of Parliament.
Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari has already started informal consultations with the allies as well as some of the opposition parties.
The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has sent a note to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), suggesting dilution in some of the key provisions of the Act, as proposed by the revenue ministers of the state governments during their recent meeting with Gadkari.
The provisions that the MoRD is keen to dilute include the one that made it mandatory to obtain prior consent of at least 70 per cent of land owners in case of acquisitions for public-private-partnership (PPP) projects and 80 per cent in case of private projects.

In its note to the PMO, the MoRD suggested that the requirement of consent of land owners should be done away with for the PPP projects, where the governments hold ownership of the land. If the rider cannot be struck off, the clause should be revised to make sure that land could be acquired even if 50 per cent of the owners had given consent, the MoRD argued in its note.  The Congress-led UPA government got the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill passed by both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha during the monsoon session of Parliament last year. It replaced the archaic Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The new law was projected as a pro-farmer legislation and triggered concerns in the industry about the delays it would cause to acquire land for any project. Though the BJP helped pass the bill in Parliament, the party hinted during its campaign for the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year that it would give the law a re-look if elected to power.

Source - Deccan Herald

Time will only tell...

Time to regulate surrogacy in India | Culture |

Time to regulate surrogacy in India | Culture | - Source

Time to regulate surrogacy in India

By  Devadatt Kamat and Lavanya Regunath   27 Mar 2013

Surrogacy in India continues to remain a very sensitive topic. The laws meant to regulate surrogacy are still in nascent stages, as they are stuck at various legislative levels. The only guidelines currently related to this field are those of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which date back to 2006. A still from the documentary, Made In India, which explores reproductive technology (Courtesy: Made In India) Meanwhile, surrogacy is growing rapidly by the day, thanks to India emerging as a centre for medical tourism and being one of the few countries in the world where commercial surrogacy is widely available. Estimates for the value of this industry range from Rs 20 billion to 2.3 billion US dollars. The legal situation in India is in sharp contrast to that existing in many other countries. In Germany and Canada surrogacy is outlawed or prohibited, in the United Kingdom it is highly regulated and very expensive. In Germany, over the last three years, there have been two controversial cases. The first, in 2008, involved twins born to a surrogate mother; the second arose barely a year ago. In both cases, German authorities refused to automatically give passports to children born of surrogate procedures. In both instances, the surrogacy procedure had been carried out in India. The main reason for the refusal of visas for these children was because surrogacy is not allowed in Germany. This is a homogenous and consistent line of reasoning and is very much in contradiction to the state of affairs in India where at the moment this sector is almost completely unregulated. There are references in Indian mythology to surrogacy, most notably in the legend surrounding Lord Krishna. But it is not commercial surrogacy – the type and scale of which is practiced in India. Today, the small Gujarat town of Anand, well known for it’s butter – another motif from the tales relating to Lord Krishna – has rapidly put itself on the global map as the most fertile ground for ‘surrogacy tourism’. All evidence suggests that the phenomenon has now spread from cities to smaller towns in India, with many of the centres calling themselves in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinics to avoid public scrutiny. Of course, there is not much emphasis given to the setting up of norms to govern this growing industry. The IMA guidelines are more like normative principles that are required to be followed and not statutory instruments that invite penalties. At present, in India the understanding between the surrogate mother and the commissioning parents is considered a contract, with a mention made of compensation to be paid to the mother. So although the guidelines recognise the existence of commercial surrogacy, it is relegated to the realm of an ordinary business contract. In other words, jurisprudence developed for commerce along with  medical guidelines are the only form of regulation of a business that is referred to - and one can only assume without irony – ‘as wombs for rent’. The Law Commission of India has brought out a report on surrogacy and the urgent need for regulation entitled, ‘Need for Legislation to Regulate Assisted Reproductive Technology Clinics as well as Rights and Obligations of Parties to a Surrogacy’. Unfortunately, this report, too, is now over three years old and the draft legislation on the issue, termed the ‘The Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Bill 2010’, is still nowhere in sight as a legally enforceable statute. The draft Bill itself is not without contentious issues since it is drafted from the perspective of the commissioning parents. The methods of payment to the surrogate and the other arrangements it lays down seem to suggest quite clearly that the surrogate figures low in the list of priorities in terms of care and protection. This is disturbing considering that surrogacy raises several ethical considerations including the fact that it leaves poor women at the mercy of a capricious system. These women often have no other recourse other than commercial surrogacy arrangements to buy themselves and their families out of debilitating circumstances. SAMA, a resource group working in the area of women and health, has raised concerns regarding the current situation as well as serious problems with the Bill. The number of pregnancies, the types of procedures and the care of the surrogate are all matters that have been inadequately addressed, both by the medical system as it exists today and the Bill. There is also the issue of race and the ethics to be considered. The implications of the use of a ‘cheaper’ womb for children to be born from eggs and sperm donated by persons, usually of Caucasian descent requires to be considered. The Law Commission Report very succinctly puts down the issue facing India today when it says that the “non-intervention of law in this knotty issue will not be proper at a time when law is to act as ardent defender of human liberty and an instrument of distribution of positive entitlements. “At the same time, prohibition on vague moral grounds without a proper assessment of social ends and purposes which surrogacy can serve would be irrational. “Active legislative intervention is required to facilitate correct uses of the new technology i.e., ART, and relinquish the cocooned approach to legalisation of surrogacy adopted hitherto. The need of the hour is to adopt a pragmatic approach by legalising altruistic surrogacy arrangements and prohibit commercial ones.” In addition, it is pertinent to note that there is hardly the required encouragement to look at adoption as a viable alternative to surrogacy to parents willing to consider this as an option to add to their family. Till recently adoption procedures in India were cumbersome and based purely on religious affiliation. With the coming into being of the CARA, or the Central Resource Adoption Agency, though this position has eased somewhat and adoption can now be a secular process. Nevertheless, the process suffers from delays and does not always provide the confidence to couples that it might be a viable method to add to the family. The Supreme Court of India, in the 2008 case of Baby Manji Yamada v/s Union of India discussed surrogacy and noted that commercial surrogacy is reaching industrial proportions because of the ready availability of poor surrogates. It mentioned the 2005 Commissions For Protection of Child Rights Act but stopped short of demanding that the government take immediate action to regulate the whole surrogacy industry, and not just address the issue of the rights of the child once it is born. But while civil society groups, the media, the courts and the Law Commission have periodically focused on the various negative aspects of the ART industry, the apathy of the country’s own legislators makes one wonder what is required to spur them to address the serious ethical and moral dimensions of this unregulated enterprise. There is no need to ban outright all surrogate procedures. India’s history of tolerance and the primacy of the family mean procedures like this can exist in harmony with options like natural childbirth or adoption. But the rampant commercialisation and lack of regulation that marks the use of ART in India create a shameful legacy for a procedure meant to bring joy to a family. -  Women's Feature Service