Gehan Gunasekara: Franchising & Privacy Law

“Gehan Gunasekara specialises in the areas of franchising law and information privacy law. He has published widely in these areas both locally and overseas. He has contributed to the literature on the need for the protection of whistle-blowers.

ABOUT Gehan Gunasekara

Gehan is interested in the issue of business compliance with privacy laws and the issues that arise when personal information is transferred from one country to another. He has also researched privacy issues connected with applications such as online social networking and the Internet.

He is a regular commentator in national media on issues concerning both privacy and franchising and is a member of the academic reference committee for the Review of Privacy by the Law Commission.

He has led research, in New Zealand, on legal issues affecting franchising and especially the incidence and areas of franchise litigation in New Zealand. Gehan is a contributor to several books including the texts Law in Business and Government in New Zealand and The Law of Business Organisations.”

5 KURIOUS KIWI QUESTIONS

Do you have interesting friends? I do. I’m a kurious kiwi, so in this LifeStyle section I ask them 5 Questions. Their responses are sometimes startling yet always thought evoking. I ask each of them a common question relating to a Cause they believe in and why it matters to them. Read on to share in their take on what they think really does matter.

In New Zealand, you are the only person working in the field of Franchise Law. Explain to us simply what it is and three of its most important safety features for people looking to become franchisees?

Franchising is basically business cloning – if you have a successful business model you can allow others to replicate it and share its success (for a fee). Since those buying the franchises provide the capital for their “cloned” business, expansion can be very fast. Safety features depend on the size and recognition by customers of the existing network, the support and training provided by the franchise head office and the economies of scale and bulk discounts a franchise system can achieve.

Your birthplace is Sri Lanka, this gives you a unique perspective to view current New Zealand Race Relations. Suggest one way current practices might be improved?

Sri Lanka sadly has much to teach us about race relations. Basically I think the lesson is that the majority community must make every effort to accommodate the minority. In Sri Lanka narrow-minded politicians got elected by arguing the minority had too many special privileges which were then stripped away. This allowed the radical minority to develop.

Tell my readers about a Cause you believe in?

I am unambiguously Marxist and an advocate for Third World causes. I am against the West preaching sustainable development to the developing countries and believe only a massive transfer of wealth from rich to poor countries will save the planet. This is not aid/charity I am talking about but a tax on the rich countries and a transfer of their technology.

Economically, the boot may be on the other foot in less than a decade (the 2025 Goldman Sachs Chart projections suggested the Chinese economy would be twice the size of the American economy.

The post Western financial crisis now puts that projection at 2020. By 2050, the Indian economy is projected to be almost the same size as the American economy. Both China and India are set to become rich countries.

Give us your opinion of a ballpark figure that might be considered a reasonable percentage of tax to less rich economies and what specific technologies do you believe they might they share?

I think this question misses the point. There are simply not enough resources on Earth for either India or China to reach the same levels of prosperity as the USA. I think the USA and other rich countries will have to scale down their own levels of consumption in order to allow the Chinese and others to reach what they think is an acceptable level of living.

I think increasingly the rich countries will focus on quality of life and happiness rather than crude per capita income. This has already begun to happen – I meet many Asians who tell me they were wealthier overseas but moved to NZ for a better quality of life. As for economic measures I think the developed countries should allow the copying of drug patents without charge and clean technlogies without charge.

Three favourite reads lately? Recommend one.

Favourite reads: “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, “A Most Wanted Man” by Le Carre and “My Life: Fidel Castro” edited by Ignacio Ramonet. All are great but I recommend ‘The Grand Design’ it is a tour de force and shows just how little we still know about our universe for example at the subatomic level part of us might actually be located in some other universe!

RELATED

1. Interview: TVNZ Morning Show, Google Privacy Concerns  2. Article: Franchise sector a ‘Wild West’ in New Zealand  3. Article: NZ Herald, Protect those who risk it all for truth