GħSL’s launched the 29th Edition of their yearly legal journal Id-Dritt last Tuesday. Id-Dritt has been considered as the leading peer-reviewed law journal in Malta for over 70 years.
The event featured six speeches by professionals and academics present regarding their respective fields as well as a panel discussion that followed on the ever-dynamic world of FinTECH. Those present were offered free physical copies of the journal. The journal will be launched as an e-book to be accessed online in the summer.
The launch opened with GħSL’s Publications Officer Emma Marie Sammut. She explained to those present that Id-Dritt is a collaboration between Law professionals in conjunction with academics sharing their expertise from their respective fields. The main intentions behind the journal is to allow students to get the information they need for their research from the best of the best in the field. The journal features chapters on the newest fields in law.The journal is ultimately aimed to give a cohesive view on all the developments occurring in the area of law.
GħSL President Lara Attard extended her appreciation to all those involved in the creation of Id-Dritt. “This publication does not only represent tradition,” Attard said, “but also the organisation’s values and appreciation towards the student body.” She continued that the journal will also be available in the form of an eBook for those who desire to read it on the go.
Professionals that attended the event and spoke were amongst the most respected in their respective areas and included: Judge Emeritus Dr. Giovanni Bonello, Dr. Consuelo Scerri Herrera, Dr. Tonio Borg, Dr. Ariane Aquilina, Dr. Robert Musumeci and Dr. Robert Dingli. The crux of their speeches was essentially regarding what they contributed towards the journal respectively.
The debate followed after the commentaries which focused on FinTECH, particularly the crypto-assets in terms of distributed ledger technology.
The panellists started off by saying that the full scope of the area was never really regulated as the law has been the same since day one. Lawyers have identified a sub-set of the assets and the regulation that has been created is specifically meant to target this.
Another sub-set is that of virtual tokens and this was a main point that was mentioned throughout. They go on to note that these virtual tokens have yet to be regulated under Maltese law. There can be no form of exchange whatsoever of these virtual tokens and since there is no secondary market, legislators have avoided regulating them. More on FinTECH can be found in Id-Dritt.
The panellists praised MFSA for the work it has been doing towards regulating this new branch of law – work which was beyond what was expected of them. Regardless, the panellists persisted that there is always room for improvement. Seeing that this is a new area, they continued that it is expected that regulations take more time to be made. It was concluded that despite the work having been done, there are still a lot of loop holes and as a result the topic of FinTECH will remain in the talks in the near future.
