By Seyi Odewale
A Nigerian start-up and commercial law firm, EandC Legal, has launched the Nigerian Technology Law Report (NTLR) 2026, a new initiative documenting how Nigerian courts are responding to legal questions arising from the growing use of technology.
The inaugural report contains 10 judgments covering areas including electronic contracts, data protection, intellectual property and transfer of technology.
It is designed to provide a structured record of Nigerian judicial decisions in which technology plays a material role in the legal issues before the courts.
The report comes against the backdrop of the rapid expansion of Nigeria’s digital economy, with technology increasingly influencing banking, financial services, commerce, healthcare, entertainment, intellectual property and government services.
As fintech platforms, digital marketplaces, artificial intelligence applications, data-driven businesses and other technology-enabled models expand, they are creating new commercial relationships and regulatory questions that are increasingly finding their way into the courts.
Speaking on the Law Report, the Editor-in-Chief and Lead Partner of EandC Legal, Omoruyi “Uyilaw” Edoigiawerie, said technology law could no longer be viewed simply as a specialised area of legal practice.
He said technology was now cutting across virtually every field of law, making it necessary to identify technology-related issues even in cases that were not formally classified as technology disputes.
“The question should not simply be whether a case is labelled a technology case or whether it was brought under a technology statute. The more important question is whether technology materially influences an important legal issue that the court is required to determine,” Edoigiawerie said.
Under the report’s methodology, he explained, a conventional commercial dispute could qualify as a technology law case where the court is required to determine the validity or evidential value of electronically generated records.
Likewise, a banking dispute involving electronic transfers or digital platforms could raise significant questions under technology law. In contrast, an intellectual property case could involve the technological exploitation or transfer of protected rights.
“An intellectual property dispute may equally involve the technological exploitation or transfer of protected rights. The legal classification of the dispute may remain conventional, but the underlying legal question may be distinctly technological,” he said.
The functional approach adopted by the NTLR is intended to provide a broader picture of how Nigerian courts are responding to technological change by identifying the technology dimension of cases across different areas of law.
The report also highlights the growing importance of the judiciary as legislation and regulatory frameworks struggle to keep pace with emerging technologies.
According to Edoigiawerie, technological developments often advance faster than lawmakers can create specific legislation, leaving courts to apply established legal principles to new and unfamiliar circumstances.
“Technological change frequently moves faster than legislation. Where existing statutes have not anticipated a new technology, judicial reasoning becomes an important mechanism through which established legal principles are tested, adapted and applied to new realities,” he said.
The report is expected to provide a historical record of the development of Nigerian technology law while helping to identify emerging judicial principles in areas such as digital evidence, electronic transactions, data protection, artificial intelligence, digital assets, cybersecurity, platform liability and technology-driven intellectual property disputes.
It is also positioned as a research resource for legal practitioners and researchers, while providing policymakers, regulators, and businesses with insights into judicial interpretation of laws affecting Nigeria’s technology ecosystem.
A key challenge the publication addresses is that technology-related judicial decisions are often scattered across different areas of law.
Cases involving electronic transactions, digital evidence, data, online platforms, or technology-enabled intellectual property may fall under conventional classifications such as commercial law, banking, evidence, or intellectual property.
The NTLR’s functional test seeks to identify and bring together these technology-related decisions, providing a more coherent picture of the judiciary’s evolving response to the digital economy.
The first volume of the Nigerian Technology Law Report 2026 is now available at technologylawreport.ng and is expected to serve as the foundation for an expanding record of Nigerian judicial decisions shaping the country’s digital legal landscape.
