29 January 2019
Understanding smart contracts
Lawyers will therefore have to get acquainted with this popular alternative to traditional contracts which require enforcement by court involvement. Issues to be addressed include:
• How do smart contracts function? Are they legally binding?
• How to perform a smart contract? What are the remedies?
• How to implement a GDPR compliant blockchain?
• How are smart contracts used in the financial sector?
• How will they be enforced?
• How does dispute resolution via blockchain work?
Which law applies to the third-party effects of assignment of claims?
In order to obtain liquidity and access credit, companies transfer the right to claim a debt to another person (= assignment). In international finance, assignment frequently occurs on a cross-border level; however, there is no legal certainty as to which law applies when determining who owns a claim after it has been assigned. In order to promote cross-border investment and access to cheaper credit, the European Commission has proposed a set of rules (COM[2018]96) to clarify which law applies in these cases. These new rules currently under debate will have a huge impact on financial industries such as banking, factoring and securitisation.
Both topics, smart contracts & blockchain technology as well as the new rules on third-party effects of assignment of claims will be discussed at ERA’s upcoming conference
Smart Contracts & Assignment of Claims on 21-22 March 2019 in Trier.