Online course
International Commercial and Technology Law
- Qualification: Master of Laws (LLM)
- Duration: 24 months, part-time
- Workload: Approx 20 hours per week
- Next enrolment: September 2024
- Fees: £19,500 (UK/EU/International)
Introduction
Be part of the digital transformation
With game-changing transformation gaining pace across the global economy, the law is reinventing itself to keep up with the digital era.
Along with momentous change comes great opportunity, but also significant and unprecedented risk associated with emerging technologies, including AI, FinTech, crypto economy, Web3 and big data.
This flexible online course will give talented and ambitious professionals like you the specialised knowledge and applied skills needed to step up and navigate the legal intricacies of tomorrow’s commercial landscape.
Key features
Learn from the best
Get first-rate teaching at one of the top 2% universities in the world, according to the latest QS World University Rankings.
Access unique content
Master a unique blend of law and tech, and combine theoretical knowledge with applied skills to tackle the challenges of future.
Connect globally
Network with global specialists from your desk, and immerse yourself in critical dialogue with international academics, peers and guest speakers.
Hilda Wehbi
I would recommend this course to all legal professionals. We are in the midst of a technological revolution, and it is imperative that we are prepared for dealing with the legal challenges as well as opportunities that lie ahead.
Hilda Wehbi
Senior Lawyer
Key information
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Delivery
100% online learning
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Duration
24 months, part-time
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Enrolment date
September
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Apply
Find out how to apply and what documents to submit in the application and selection section
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Workload
Approx 20 hours per week
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Course director
Dr Joseph Lee, Reader in Corporate and Commercial Law
Fees and funding
Total course tuition fee for September 2024 entry is £19,500 (UK/EU/International).
You can save up to 15% on your tuition fees. Please see our fees and funding section below for more details.
We offer payment by instalments , so you can spread the cost of studying with us.
Explore a range of scholarships and bursaries available for this course below.
Entry requirements
We require an Upper Second (2:1) Class Honours degree in law (or the overseas equivalent), or a degree with at least 70% law content, or a graduate diploma in law.
A First (1:1) or an Upper Second (2:1) Class Honours in a non-law degree such as finance or business will also be considered, if you have at least three years’ work experience in a law firm as a practicing solicitor or have passed the bar exam and are working as a practicing lawyer.
If you have substantial work experience closely related to law but not substantively legal in nature, for example as a contracts manager, you may also be considered.
Contact us today
Course overview
Who this course is for
If you’re a lawyer, or working in a legal environment like contracts or compliance, you’ll be aware of just how significantly advances in technology and the influx of digital systems are changing the way we work. If your role in trade and services has any kind of legal and regulatory focus, you’ll face unprecedented challenges that require new ways of thinking. If you’re a civil servant, researcher or academic, you’ll see how the digital transformation is reframing tech and commerce across the world.
Whatever your role, at a time when technology is defining progress, inquisitive, ambitious and determined individuals like you will shape the future. This prestigious LLM will give you up-to-the-minute specialist knowledge and applied skills to lead with confidence in a changing world.
If you’re a busy professional, keen to excel in your career, this online course gives you the flexibility to take the next steps while you continue to work, the know-how to think differently as you face new challenges, and the international connections to build a sophisticated understanding of the global context.
What you will learn
- Explore the legal context, risks and opportunities arising from the digital revolution.
- Get to grips with the principles and rules of commercial and tech law, and understand related legal systems.
- Cover a range of contemporary issues surrounding technology and commerce, including FinTech, AI, big data, cryptocurrency, intellectual property and cyberspace.
- Evaluate different approaches to regulation and legislation to address new challenges collaboratively, in a global context.
- Gain a broad understanding of commerce and tech, and a nuanced appreciation of the role of law for a safe and effective digital future.
How it will benefit your career
- As the commerce world goes digital, specialised skills will become indispensable, putting you in prime position for promotion or a higher-level role elsewhere.
- Teaching informed by the latest research will guarantee up-to-the-minute knowledge, and encourage leading-edge thinking and debate.
- Sharpened problem-solving skills and fine-tuned critical thinking will prepare you to address new challenges and shape new approaches.
- The relevance and breadth of the issues covered will help you understand the big picture, enabling you to transfer your skills and adapt to an inevitably changing landscape.
- Build relationships with academics and professionals across the world to create a global network that opens up exciting new opportunities.
Where and when you will study
This course is designed for busy working professionals, so it’s 100% online and completely flexible. There’s no campus-based learning, so you can stay where you are. There’s no need to pause your career or interrupt your family or social life while you complete the course. You can study wherever and whenever works best for you.
The highly interactive content is built around our academics’ current research and combines live and interactive lectures with recorded material, balancing independent learning with online collaboration, discussion and group work.
Course units
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1. Corporations, Technology and Law (30 credits)
Get to grips with key topics and themes in business organisations law, and understand their implications. Gain a full appreciation of the legal nature of business organisations, the role of technology within them, and the related legal and regulatory issues. Learn how to effectively identify pertinent challenges, understand the technological impact, and evaluate and assess various options from a theoretical and practical standpoint.
Critically evaluate how companies and company law is affected by technology, and delve deeper into the principal features of company law, as well as blockchain technology and AI law. Build specialist skills to comprehensively identify, explain, assess and analyse the issues covered, and learn how to apply relevant legal rules and theories.
In this unit, you will explore the operation and regulation of business organisations such as corporations and DAO. Focusing initially on the regulation of companies in England and Wales, we will establish the fundamental principles and examine the key internal relationships, looking in particular at directors’ duties and shareholder remedies while considering the implications of using corp tech (corporate technology) for improving corporate governance. The unit then moves on to consider matters of enforcement and finance such as IPO, ICO and STO, taking a transnational law approach.
Course unit outline:
- Corporate forms and general legal principles
- Corporate governance
- Corporate finance
- Artificial intelligence in corporate governance
- Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and Security Token Offering (STO)
- Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO)
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2. Online Privacy, Defamation and Data Protection Law (30 credits)
The rise of social media, cloud computing and widely-available internet-enabled devices, have made the world increasingly digital and connected. Examine one’s ability to control personal information online in the World Wide Web context. Consider various legal instruments and jurisdictions, including English privacy and defamation law, famously influenced by the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as supranational pieces of legislation on data protection law, such as the GDPR.
Explore to what extent should individual autonomy and dignity be protected online as opposed to the pivotal importance of freedom of expression, and build your critical reflection and evaluative research skills.
The unit begins with a broad overview of the legal areas covered in the course and an online seminar.
You will then study topics of online privacy and the ‘right to be forgotten’ which will cover the complex history of privacy law in England and Wales, closely intertwined the ECHR and the HRA 1998, as well as reform (proposed ‘Bill of Rights’ circa June 2022). You will examine the change to society prompted by the rise in social media and the internet, and the perennial problem of private information as disclosed online – and what laws can counterbalance this such as misuse of private information and Article 17 of the GDPR. The topic will also cover the importance of freedom of expression online, providing a counterbalance to privacy interests.
The topic of online defamation will frame the historical tort (that again has been heavily influenced by Articles 8 and 10 ECHR) and reform in the 2013 Act. In particular, s.5 of the DA 2013 will be discussed – protection for online intermediaries when defamatory content is posted to a website. There has been a vast increase in defamation online rather than through traditional media in the last decade, and the courts demonstrate a difference in approach to both.
The final substantive section will consider the history of EU data protection law (the 1995 Directive), inefficiencies, the adoption of the GDPR, and its effectiveness and implementation across the EU and the UK – and the problems that Brexit has caused, and proposed reform (Data Rights Bill).
Course unit outline:
- Introduction and original research skills
- Online privacy and the ‘right to be forgotten’
- Online defamation
- Data protection
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3. Financial Law and FinTech (30 credits)
Identify and explore the fundamental principles of financial regulation relating to financial institutions, investment contracts, and financial technologies (FinTechs). Learn about various regulatory initiatives for technologies such as blockchain, AI and big data in financial market, and cover regulatory fields including conduct of business, financial promotion and investor protection, market abuse, financial crime and data governance.
Analyse the legal, regulatory and policy issues associated with cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, online lending, new payments and wealth management technologies. Consider the evolving relationship between FinTechs, regulators and traditional financial institutions, and scrutinise liabilities.
The unit analyses the legal rights of parties to financial and investment contracts, and the UK regulatory system governing the entirety of investment regulation (that is, everything that is neither banking nor insurance) by the Financial Conduct Authority. It is essential to the practice of finance law. It draws on the root principles in the EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and other regulation, as well as laws in the UK.
In this unit, you will cover the conduct of business regulation, financial promotion and investor protection, fintech regulation, and data governance in financial markets. You will analyse problems in the creation of contracts, and liability for wrongs such as market abuse and for breaches of fiduciary duty as such in asset management. You will focus on the legal and regulatory framework for financial technologies, such as Fintech, Regtech, Suptech and Legaltech.
You will learn how Fintech such as Blockchain technology, AI, and Big Data is being used in and developed for financial services, including sectors such as retail and private banking, asset management, trading platforms and payment systems. The unit covers various legal, regulatory, and policy issues, from both a prudential and a conduct perspective, in the financial services industry such as the internal systems and controls, best execution rules, asset manager’s fiduciary duties to clients, anti-money laundering control, market abuse, data protection, and cyber risk.
Course unit outline:
- Financial markets and regulators
- Senior managers and certification regime
- Capital market and investor protection
- Asset management and investor protection
- Market integrity insider dealing, and market abuse
- AI and financial markets
- Crowdfunding regulation
- Crypto-finance
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4. Intellectual Property Law in the Digital Ecosystem (30 credits)
The internet posed a new threats regarding privacy, access and intellectual property, which prompted the development technical solutions to restrict copying and unauthorised access. At the same time, policymakers were persuaded that such copyright protection mechanisms needed legal protection against circumvention. Examine the legal and technological framework that emerged from this situation to protect digital intellectual property.
The unit explores the emerging legal and technological framework for the protection of intellectual property rights in the digital environment. Technological developments pose significant challenges to the application and enforcement of intellectual property rights. For instance, 3D printing technology is enabling mass infringement of design rights, patents, and trademarks. The internet, in principle, makes copyrighted works accessible all over the world, and open to be easily copied and distributed without the knowledge of the copyright holder. The digital environment constantly challenges the enforcement of intellectual property law in many ways. Policymakers and the courts are attempting to respond to such challenges with existing provisions undergoing significant reformation.
The primary purpose of this unit is to introduce the foundations of intellectual property (IP) law, and to explore core issues arising in IP policy. You will develop your understanding of how IP protection works, examine historical theories underpinning intellectual property law and the socio-economic role that intellectual property law plays. You will build on your critical approach towards intellectual property rights, in addition to being able to articulate your arguments regarding the desirability, viability and potential for reform of intellectual property law in both written and oral forms.
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Project (60 credits)
Write and research a supervised dissertation project.
Your dissertation project involves:
- A 700-word research plan (10%)
- An 8,000-word supervised individual research project (dissertation/research paper submitted in September (60%), and
- A 10 min recorded video presentation with a poster or PowerPoint slides (30%).
Course structure
In year 1, you will study two 30-credit units, and in year 2, a further two 30-credit units, followed by your research project. This course is completely online, and is flexible, so can be completed at your own pace. It’s part-time, with each unit lasting 15 weeks.
Unit 1 (Sep-Jan, 15 weeks)
Corporations, Technology and Law (30 credits)
Unit 2 (Jan-May, 15 weeks)
Online Privacy, Defamation and Data Protection Law (30 credits)
Unit 3 (Sep-Jan, 15 weeks)
Financial Law and FinTech (30 credits)
Unit 4 (Jan-May, 15 weeks)
Intellectual Property Law in the Digital Ecosystem (30 credits)
Project (Jan-Sep, 30 weeks)
A supervised dissertation project (60 credits)
Course learning aims
During the course, you will:
- Develop an understanding of some of the emerging topics and prevalent themes in business organisations law with a focus on technology such as AI, blockchain and securities tokens offering to provide students with a strong foundation in the legal regulation of business organisations.
- Understand the background and content of online privacy, defamation & data protection law, whilst developing an awareness of contemporary issues in the area.
- Develop the ability to identify and explore the fundamental principles of financial regulation relating to financial markets and financial technologies.
- Grow an understanding of the current challenges posed to the development and the enforcement of the intellectual property law by the emerging technologies.
- Enhance the ability to recognise and implement different research practices, including formulating research questions, critically appraising the current scholarship, choosing appropriate research methods, planning individual project outline, practicing research ethics, and communicating the research results via a recorded video presentation that includes a poster or a set of slides.
Teaching and learning
This course is entirely online, with a combination of delivery methods so you can work at your own pace and have a balance of real-life interaction with peers and academics.
A range of interactive material is available through your online virtual learning environment (VLE), including recorded videos, downloadable documents, graphics and discussion boards which you can access whenever you need, and can go back to again and again. Like all University students, you’ll have access to our extensive library services, including e-books and journals about commercial and technology law.
You’ll also benefit from live lectures and seminars delivered online where you can interact with fellow students and ask your course leaders questions in real-time.
At this level, we’ll expect you to manage your own time and work independently to complete set tasks, reading assignments, research and revision.
Throughout your course, you’ll have a dedicated Study Support Advisor who can help with course-related questions, and support you with the VLE.
Academic teaching start date for September 2024 entry is 16 September 2024.
The welcome event and induction take place one week before the academic teaching start date. Our admissions team will confirm your induction date closer to the time.
Please ensure that you complete your registration ahead of your chosen entry date to gain access to the online learning material and library services.
Coursework and assessment
Each taught course unit is worth 30 credits and is assessed through different methods including multiple choice questions, short essays, podcasts and recorded video presentations.
You’ll also complete one 60-credit supervised research project on a subject of your choice. This involves:
- A 700 word research plan (10%)
- An 8,000-word supervised individual research project (dissertation/research paper submitted in September (60%), and
- A 10 min recorded video presentation with a poster or PowerPoint slides (30%).
Admissions information
From your initial expression of interest right through to graduation, you’ll receive all the support you need. We will guide you through the enrolment process and help with subject assistance, administrative logistics and fee options, online learning skills, workload management and special circumstances.
Entry requirements
Academic entry qualification overview
We require an Upper Second (2:1) Class Honours degree in law (or the overseas equivalent), or a degree with at least 70% law content, or a graduate diploma in law.
A First (1:1) or an Upper Second (2:1) Class Honours in a non-law degree such as finance or business will also be considered, if you have at least three years’ work experience in a law firm as a practicing solicitor or have passed the bar exam and are working as a practicing lawyer.
If you have substantial work experience closely related to law but not substantively legal in nature, for example as a contracts manager, you may also be considered.
If you are an international student, and are looking for a general guide on entry and language requirements for your country, please visit our country-specific information pages .
English language
If you are not from, or did not graduate from a majority English speaking country , we will also require proof of your English language ability. If you already have an English language qualification, please include your certificate with your application. We accept:
- IELTS academic test score of 7 overall, including 6.5 in writing with no further component score below 6.5, or equivalent. Discover more about English language requirements .
English language test validity
Application and selection
How to apply
Advice to applicants
To speed up the application process, please submit the following documents with your online application form:
1. Copies of official degree certificates and transcripts of your previous study, showing the subjects taken and grades obtained. If these documents are in languages other than English, please provide official translations in addition to your official certificates and transcripts.
2. English language score report (if applicable) or alternative evidence to demonstrate your English language competency.
3. A copy of your CV detailing your full work experience.
4. Personal statement of up to 500 words, addressing the following questions:
- What attracts you to this course?
- What do you hope to gain from this course and how will it help you achieve your goals?
5. As part of the application process, you will need to provide contact details for one referee - professional or academic. The University will contact your referee directly after you submit your application and ask them to complete an online reference form.
Scholarships and bursaries
If you're an English or EU student living in the UK, you may be eligible for a loan.
Manchester Master's Bursary (UK)
We're committed to helping students access further education.
Manchester Alumni Scholarship Schemes
If you completed your degree at Manchester, you could receive a discount.
Funding for students with disabilities
If you have a disability, we can help you apply for relevant funding.
Fees and funding
Total course tuition fee for September 2024 entry is £19,500 (UK/EU/International).
Tuition fee discounts
- Early application discount (10%): Apply on or before 19 May 2024 to receive 10% reduction on your tuition fee for September 2024 entry. To be eligible, you will need to submit a complete application on or before the early application deadline and if offered a place, you will need to accept your offer within two weeks from the date of the offer.
- Alumni discount (15%): If you have successfully graduated from a credit-bearing qualification at The University of Manchester or UMIST, you can receive a 15% discount on the tuition fees that you are personally funding.
One-discount policy : Discounts and scholarships are not accumulative. If you qualify for more than one, you will be awarded the one that is the highest amount.
Employer funding
If you are looking to secure funding from your employer, we can help you build a business case or talk to your employer directly. Contact us on studyonline@manchester.ac.uk to arrange a consultation.
Payment by instalments
During registration you will have the opportunity to pay your fees in three equal instalments. Learn more .
Additional cost information
Policy on additional costs
All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).
Regulated by the Office for Students
The University of Manchester is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS aims to help students succeed in Higher Education by ensuring they receive excellent information and guidance, get high quality education that prepares them for the future and by protecting their interests. More information can be found at the OfS website.
You can find regulations and policies relating to student life at The University of Manchester, including our Degree Regulations and Complaints Procedure, on our regulations website.