Greetings from a novel newsletter: Smart Contracts and Law
This newsletter is provided by the team of the project “Legal Analysis of Smart Contracts with a Focus on Dispute Resolution, Personal Data and Consumer Protection” supported by TÜBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). It will provide news on the intersection of smart contracts and law.
In the first issue, we reviewed recent advances in this area and selected the following for our readers:
- Germany 🇩🇪 German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has published a new website on the crypto ecosystem with guidance on crypto assets, crypto securities, CASPs, DAO and NFTs on 1 September 2022.
- EU 🇪🇺 The European Commission has published its Data Act proposal to harmonise rules on fair access to and use of data. This proposal defines smart contracts as computer programs on electronic ledgers that execute and settle transactions based on pre-determined conditions. In addition, Chapter VIII provides essential requirements for smart contracts (covered in Article 30). These are robustness, safe termination and interruption, auditability, data archiving and continuity and access control. The goal concerning smart contracts in Data Act is to promote their interoperability by laying down essential requirements for professionals who create smart contracts for others or integrate them into applications that support the implementation of agreements for sharing data.
- European Law Institute 🇪🇺 The European Law Institute (ELI) Council approved the ELI Principles on Blockchain Technology, Smart Contracts and Consumer Protection on 5 July 2022. In the first part, the document offers twelve principles on blockchain and smart contracts, such as “language”, “weaker parties”, and “case-specific approach”. The second part focuses on consumer protection with six principles, most of which are connected to familiar consumer protection terms such as the right of withdrawal and unfair terms.
- UK 🇬🇧 On 24 February 2022, LawtechUK brought together people from across sectors and professions at its ‘Contracts, just smarter’ event in London and online. The event marked the launch of LawtechUK’s Smarter Contracts report. This groundbreaking report was produced by LawtechUK and its UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) in collaboration with a range of leading experts and provides practical examples of how technology is already being used to improve different types of contracts across commercial, financial and consumer sectors.
- UK 🇬🇧 As part of the UK’s Thirteenth Programme of Law Reform, the Law Commission, an independent statutory body, published their advice to Government on smart legal contracts on 25 November 2021.