Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, wants English law to be at the forefront of developments relating to cryptoassets and smart contracts. In his thought-provoking foreword to the government-backed UK Jurisdictional Taskforce’s (UKJT) Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts, he explained that English law should aim to provide “much needed market confidence, legal certainty and predictability in areas that are of great importance to the technological and legal communities and to the global financial services industry” as well as to “demonstrate the ability of the common law in general, and English law in particular, to respond consistently and flexibly to new commercial mechanisms.” He returned to the same theme in a speech on 24 February 2022 at the launch of the Smarter Contracts report by the UKJT in which he said “[m]y hope is that English law will prove to be the law of choice for borderless blockchain technology as its take up grows exponentially in the months and years to come”.

The law defines whether and how an owner can find and recover a stolen asset, whether a contract about an asset can be enforced and whether rights are owed between parties in relation to an asset.  English law has traditionally been very flexible in fashioning remedies to uphold contracts and to allow parties to preserve and follow (trace) assets – by interim protective relief in the form of injunctions, disclosure orders against third parties (Banker’s Trust orders), by recognising trusts over assets and by the English Courts accepting jurisdiction over claims in the first place.  If English law allows owners of cryptoassets to access these remedies, it should provide the “market confidence, legal certainty and predictability” described by Sir Geoffrey Vos.

In this article, we explore the extent to which recent developments in English law have furthered these objectives and address in turn:

  • Are cryptoassets property?
  • Can cryptoassets be held on trust?

Read the first part of the series on our Blockchain and the Law blog.

Posted in Commercial Litigation, Media and Technology
Tags: contracts, cryptoassets, Cryptocurrency, english courts, english law, UK Guidance, UK Jurisdictional Taskforce
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Photo of Steven Baker Steven Baker

Steven Baker is a partner in the Litigation department and a member of the International Arbitration group. He has over 25 years of experience advising clients on complex, often multi-jurisdictional disputes in a wide range of industries, including asset management, technology, life sciences…

Steven Baker is a partner in the Litigation department and a member of the International Arbitration group. He has over 25 years of experience advising clients on complex, often multi-jurisdictional disputes in a wide range of industries, including asset management, technology, life sciences, financial services and defence sectors. He also has extensive experience advising upon and managing disputes for clients involving major technology or telecommunications projects and their financing, technology licensing and misappropriation of trade secrets.

Steven is ranked as a leading litigator for banking and financial services litigation in both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners, who comment that “Steven is a tremendous litigator – he is very clever and efficient and handles multiple clients well” as well as being ”very thoughtful, very into the detail, but equally takes a very commercial stance”, “Very good at running complex commercial disputes, very bright and a pleasure to deal with” and “has a really good grasp of complex banking litigation.” He was named by Benchmark Litigation as its inaugural “UK Lawyer of the Year” in 2019 as well as a National Litigation Star (2019-2021). He was also designated a  Client Services All-Star by the BTI Consulting Group, which selects lawyers who “deliver outstanding legal skills and superior client services” based on interviews with legal corporate counsel at the world’s leading organizations.

Steven lectures on dispute resolution-related matters, including on the M. Sc. Major Projects course at Said Business School, University of Oxford. He is also the co-author of a leading publication on technology disputes entitled, “IT Contracts and Dispute Management: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Project Lifecycle”, a second edition having been commissioned.

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Photo of Julia Bihary Julia Bihary

Julia Bihary is an associate in the Litigation Department with a focus on complex commercial litigation, arbitration, private wealth, trusts and charities disputes.

Her recent experience includes advising corporate clients, high-net-worth individuals, fund managers and charities in a variety of disputes including international…

Julia Bihary is an associate in the Litigation Department with a focus on complex commercial litigation, arbitration, private wealth, trusts and charities disputes.

Her recent experience includes advising corporate clients, high-net-worth individuals, fund managers and charities in a variety of disputes including international arbitrations, commercial, contractual and professional negligence disputes.

Julia is a solicitor advocate with Higher Rights of Audience.

She is fluent in English, Hungarian and German.

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