Hong Kong’s legal system is, in many respects, taking part in catch up with developments all over the world which have seen new know-how embraced and deployed. Progress has been made in the use of distant hearings and the digital submitting of courtroom paperwork, with voice-to-text recording of proceedings and broadcasting of circumstances trialled. Within the fast-developing subject of cryptocurrency, town has set some key precedents. It is a constructive signal.
A Excessive Courtroom injunction has been served, utilizing tokenised know-how, on the unknown holders of two cryptocurrency wallets. That is believed to be a primary amongst main widespread legislation jurisdictions. The order issues a fraud declare by a advertising agency that transferred US$2.66 million price of Tether, a stablecoin, to the wallets, falling sufferer to a rip-off. The injunction prohibits disposal of the belongings.
Historically, courtroom orders are served in particular person or by publish. However this isn’t potential when defendants are unknown and their “addresses” are on a blockchain. The revolutionary putting of a tokenised legal notice on the wallets overcomes this downside, making anybody dealing with the belongings conscious they’re the topic of a courtroom order.
This, it’s supposed, will successfully freeze the funds and forestall their use by the perpetrators of the rip-off. A document final month confirmed round US$1 million price of Tether was nonetheless in one of the accounts. The notice warns the defendants and anybody who assists them in breaching the injunction they might face contempt of courtroom proceedings and a jail time period or a superb.
Difficulties stay in monitoring down the culprits and punishing them for contempt in the event that they breach the order. However the service of the doc no less than warns law-abiding cryptocurrency exchanges that they need to not deal with the funds. It’s a step ahead.
The transfer follows an unprecedented Hong Kong courtroom ruling final yr requiring a cryptocurrency finance challenge involving a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) to offer monetary data as half of a legal dispute. This supplied readability and furthered each accountability and transparency.
