📈 Digital Law Reform: "Click First, Sue Later" Era Must End

The Jaffna International Law Conference 2026 highlighted a critical "structural misalignment" in Sri Lanka's digital economy. While the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006 validates digital clicks as contracts, the legal system struggles to provide remedies when transactions fail. • The Accountability Gap Current digital failures fragment across multiple authorities (Central Bank, CAA, Police). Experts argue that "control plus profit must equal responsibility," suggesting that commercial liability should follow the entity deploying the ICT/BPM infrastructure, rather than being exported to the consumer. • Gig Economy & The "Uber" Precedent Drawing from the UK's Uber BV v Aslam ruling, the keynote emphasized that economic reality—who controls pricing and performance—should outweigh formal contractual labels. This is vital for Sri Lanka’s platform economy to ensure worker and consumer protection. • Proposed Minimum Commercial Obligations To bridge the gap between code and law, four key pillars were proposed: Explainability: Large platforms must provide reasoned explanations for automated decisions. Human Review: Access to human intervention for significant economic consequences (e.g., frozen funds). Inward Risk Allocation: Responsibility must be resolved between vendors and processors before going live. Speed of Remedy: Legal redress must match the instant nature of digital payments. • Future Outlook Sri Lanka is advised to adopt a hybrid approach: preserving statutory certainty while empowering courts to treat platforms as active economic participants rather than passive messengers.