The smart contract is a computer program that facilitates the automation of processes related to human bargaining. e topic is receiving some attention in doctrine perhaps by virtue of its curious name and perhaps because the concept is closely linked to the idea of the automation of law, a hotly debated topic. Having said that, it is not clear whether this innovation will be fully applied in the next few years in the field of consumer mass bargaining. On the one hand, the issue lends itself to an initial reflection on the evolution of the standardisation of consumer contracts in the global and digital economy. Our hypothesises is the smart contract constitutes a form of 'extreme standardisation' of consumer contracts, or rather, of their total or partial execution. is form is immediately very particular and critical for the interpreter, since it is intimately linked to the technological medium (i.e. Blockchain technology) and straddles the digital world and the real one. On the other hand, the paper considers whether the automation process, which is fully realised by the smart contract after the advent of electronic commerce and digital platforms, will be an opportunity to reduce the costs of justice in consumer disputes, or, on the contrary, will constitute a risk to consumer freedoms.
Blockchain has been posed as a revolutionary technology. Its application is diametrically opposed to the centralized conventional mechanisms. However, it would appear that blockchain has only been able to have a significant impact on payment mechanisms and financial transactions. Blockchain technology went on to revolutionize the financial industry with the advent of Bitcoin in 20081. However, many within the legal and business fraternity believe that smart contracts will outsize the disruption caused by crypto-currency and believe that smart contracts will reinvent the way businesses and people alike enter into transactions2. The purpose of this paper is two pronged: first, to analyse the use of smart contracts to understand if its positives outweigh its negatives or viceversa and analyse how this technology can benefit India; and second, to analyse the legal recognition and enforceability of smart contracts in India while drawing from the regulatory experiences of other jurisdictions, with a focus on the experience of the United Kingdom.
<h5 class=annotation lang-ru sigil_not_in_toc>В статье обсуждается решение высшего суда Сингапура, рассмотревшего вопрос о том, может ли сделка, совершенная между собой двумя компьютерными алгоритмами (условно говоря, роботами), быть признана недействительной ввиду существенного заблуждения одной из сторон.<br /> Ключевая проблема — как определять ментальное состояние сторон такой сделки на момент ее совершения, если владельцы роботов лично в сделке не участвовали? Большинство судей считает, что стороне-ответчику вменяется ментальное состояние программиста, который программировал ее робота. Судья из Англии, выступивший с особым мнением, полагает, что стороне вменяется ментальное состояние «разумного трейдера», если бы он принимал участие в этой сделке вместо ее робота.<br /> Термин «смарт-контракт» в деле не фигурирует. Однако многие сформулированные в нем тезисы относятся в том числе и к смарт-контрактам, понимаемым как компьютерные алгоритмы, существующие и исполняемые в блокчейнах.</h5>
Lately, more and more attention has been paid to the phenomenon of smart-contracts (SC) in legal research. The SCs have already found their application in many aspects of society life and are particularly common in the regulation of legal relations in the area of automated financial services, which may include lending, mortgages, insurance, etc., as well as in public services, including various types of voting, elections, document management, supply and storage. The practical dissemination of SCs is carried out without a conceptual approach in the legal regulation of this object, but also without a unified terminology. The science begins developing approaches to study of the legal nature of SCs and offers options for their legal regulation have been proposed, each of those, of course, has its benefits and disadvantages, which is explained by the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon. First of all, it means a qualitatively new level of functioning of a smart-contract where the technical component overlays on traditional types of legal relations. Both authors of the article used scientific methods such as analysis, synthesis, comparison, induction and deduction. Special attention is paid to different options for understanding the legal nature of smart contracts, proposed by European and domestic scientists.
Universidad Regional Autónoma de Los Andes. Ecuador., A.J.R Fernández
Blockchain technology has put in the hands of humanity the solution to many practical problems that are present today in various organizations. Smart contracts are part of the improvements that were introduced from the use of this technology and were widely accepted by users in general. Various applications are included in the development of this type of platform, which has reached the legal field as a solution to the current problems of Contract Law. The selection of the best alternative, when hiring its implementation, leads to not making optimal use of resources during the process. That is why the main objective of the research was focused on designing and implementing a procedure, in the form of an exercise, for the selection of a smart contracting system in the legal field. In its fulfillment, the authors had the support of a heterogeneous group of experts in the field who determined the factors for their selection and their respective weight through the Kendall concordance method. Subsequently, the use of these factors in the VIKOR (VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromiso Resenje) method made it possible to determine the best alternative to hire.
A smart contract is software designed to do the job of a legal contract: ensuring the performance of parties who might not otherwise trust one another to do so. By running a smart contract on blockchain, users can lock themselves into future performances without relying on a third-party enforcer or platform host, thereby realizing a “fully trustless” exchange. This new technology has wide range of potential applications, and contracts are likely to become an increasingly common part of the economy. Some have argued that smart contracts represent a new type of legal contract, analogizing the software’s code to a contractual writing. Others have suggested that smart contracts might in some transactions replace legal contracts. But the relationship between smart contracts and legal contracts is more complex than either claim acknowledges. Although using a smart contract can figure into the formation of a legal contract, it is a mistake to analogize a smart contract’s code to a contractual writing. Unlike writings, code should rarely figure into to the interpretation of a legal contract; and when it does, its interpretation is different in kind. And though some have tried to use incorporation, integration or TINALEA clauses to substitute smart contracts for traditional contractual protections, it is not clear that courts would or should always enforce such provisions. And even if they do, governance by code rather than law comes at a significant cost to the parties. Smart contracts work better when they supplement, rather than supplant, legal contracts. This article analyzes the many ways a smart contract might interact with the law of contracts by taking seriously the comparison, common in the literature, of smart contracts to vending machines. A series of thought experiments is used to explore when and how the mechanisms inside a machine, analog or digital, can affect the terms of a legal contract between its users. The resulting detailed doctrinal analysis provides support for a broader thesis about the relationship between technology, law and society. Smart contracts, though useful tools, instantiate an anemic form of human sociability as compared to the complex, even trusting, relationships for which contract law is designed.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) built in the blockchain are quietly revolutionizing ideas around digital assets despite their questionable status under current law. Furthermore, the smart contracts that control many NFTs are disrupting the way deals are done. At the same time, disputes regarding NFTs and smart contracts are inevitable, and parties will need means for dealing with these highly technical issues. This chapter tackles this challenge and proposes that parties turn to online dispute resolution (“ODR”) to efficiently and fairly resolve NFT and smart contract disputes. Furthermore, the chapter acknowledges the benefits and challenges of current means for addressing blockchain issues and proposes ideas for how designers could address those challenges and incorporate ODR to provide efficient and fair resolutions.
We explain the mechanics of smart contracts. We then highlight the benefits of smart contracts, such as overcoming commitment problems. We also discuss limitations, such as the difficulty for smart contracts to access information external to the blockchain and the difficulty of integrating smart contract code with traditional legal enforcement. We further highlight how the absence of a trusted intermediary inflates implementation costs for blockchain applications. We conclude with a discussion of the most prominent smart contract applications in decentralized finance: token issuance (e.g., initial coin offerings, nonfungible tokens), decentralized exchanges, and protocols for loanable funds. Our survey covers both institutional details and relevant literature.
Innovations in technology have fast outpaced the rate of change in most legal system, and it is clear that innovation continues to develop at speed. The law is in an interesting phase of development as our courts and legislatures adapt to recognize and apply legal principles in such innovative contexts. B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd [2019] SGHC(I) 3(hereinafter ‘B2C2’) concerned trades relating to the sale by electronic market maker of the cryptocurrency. B2C2 is one of the first cases to consider issues of contract and trust law in the context of the trading of cryptocurrencies and contains interesting observations as to how the doctrine of mistake in common law and equity may apply to such contracts. The relief sought is also of interest, the primary relief sought by plaintiff was specific performance coupled with damages. SICC disagreed. Disputes involving disruptive technologies, such as cryptocurrencies and smart contracts, pose unique legal issues that are difficult to answer. It is important to monitor and influence developments about these issues.
Purpose-The smart contract and blockchain concepts are being discussed in various disciplines as well as law with a rapid increase. However, in legal sense, the application of such concepts are far more advanced than the legal regulations on those topics not to mention the academic studies. Although there are a few distinguished monographies and a number of papers focusing the legal aspect, the applicability especially in certain circumstance -in which contractual law studies or defines as fundamental elements -are still vague. Therefore, this paper distinguishes itself by focusing on the purpose of studying some of the possible legal effects and results of smart contracts in commercial life as well as in finance.
In this paper, we analyze the formal and material requirements of the jurisdictional agreements made in the field of smart contracts and Blockchain technology. Specifically, the study focuses on the formal aspects of this type of agreement, detailing under what circumstances an express submission agreement between subjects that use smart contracts (to self-execute one or more contractual clauses) will be valid. The different formats in which these types of agreements can appear are also explained, considering the new platforms and computer applications that have appeared in recent years. The theoretical constructions are accompanied by examples and graphics that are intended to illustrate, as far as possible, the practical aspect of smart contracts and jurisdictional agreements. Regarding the systematics of this paper, without prejudice to the introductory sections and the conclusion, it is divided into several sections according to the different types of smart contracts according to the form they take (or, rather, according to the form of the underlying contract that usually accompanies the smart contract), which has allowed a more rigorous study of the jurisdiction agreements carried out in this area. Finally, the study focuses especially on Regulation No. 1215/2015 due to its preeminent application in the Spanish Private International Law.
The research aims to organize, examine, and analyze the provisions on smart contracts available in Romanian civil law. “Smart contracts” are not smart, and are not necessarily contracts, although they can be. As self-executing computer programs, smart contracts are operational on the blockchain and unlike traditional legal contracts, once the agreement has been concluded and the smart contract is set in motion, no party can intervene and it will be executed without interruption, modification, or breach. The crucial question in the final contract law topic is what happens when the smart contract's outcomes deviate from those required by law. To answer this issue, we must first understand that whether a smart contract becomes legally enforceable is determined by several circumstances, together with the unique use case, the type of smart contract employed, and the existing legislation. The paper addresses the subject of determining and regulating smart contracts under Romanian current laws. Particular emphasis is placed on two ambiguous definitions of smart contracts: as computer code and as a civil-law contract. The authors conclude that the concept of smart contracts requires more legal regulation, particularly in terms of managing their meaning and comprehension.
Smart contracts, originally introduced in the 1990s by Nick Szabo, have gained prominence with the rise of blockchain technology, and with the latest developments in algorithmic contracting. Their impact on contract law is evident, and therefore this paper analyzes from the English contract law perspective their formation phase in order to become legally enforceable. In addition, the analysis is carried out separately with respect to smart contracts whose formation phase is prior to their translation into code, from those in which algorithms are involved in the contract formation phase, which presents greater complexities. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges presented by the legal framework of smart contracts in order to prepare the basis for future research on ways to address these concerns.