Monthly Archives: June, 2025
Jim Moye, ‘Smart Contracts Are Neither Smart Nor A Contract: The Case Against Smart Contract Utilization in Everyday Consumer or Commercial Transactions’
ABSTRACT No doubt, most of us have gone into a local electronics store or ordered a new gadget from an online provider. After purchasing the gadget, we are eager to start operating the new purchase. Before fully utilizing the gadget, however, there are a series of screens requiring the user to read, acknowledge, and consent […]
Joachim Dietrich, ‘Inferring Causation: Risks, “Common Experience” and Social Facts’
ABSTRACT When determining causation in tort law, courts often infer causal links between a defendant’s negligence and a plaintiff’s injury, even where there is only limited evidence. This article considers the principles that govern the process of drawing inferences and their application in Australian law. Causal inferences are triggered by the defendant’s conduct that significantly […]
Vera Lúcia Raposoa, ‘To own or not to own, that is the question with NFTs (digital ‘ownership’ and the legal status of NFT’s acquirers)’
ABSTRACT The emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – unique, blockchain-based tokens – has introduced a new dimension to the concept of property rights in the digital domain. Recent legal developments in the UK and the proposal of the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill fuelled the discussion on how to legally conceptualise digital assets, including Non-Fungible […]
Anat Alon-Beck, ‘Incorporating Unicorns: An Empirical Analysis’
ABSTRACT There is a growing concern among regulators and academics about how to regulate unicorns – entities large enough to have a public impact yet remaining in the private domain. An examination of corporate charters within a selected sample of unicorn firms reveals an important finding, a significant revelation emerges: 97% of these entities are […]
Andreas Peters, ‘Is Europe Hindering Medical Innovation? Unraveling the Patent Time Trap’
ABSTRACT This study explores how patent rules and economic factors affect the development of new medical devices, like heart monitors or surgical tools, in Europe. Using advanced computer models, we found that extending patent protection by 3 years through Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) can boost companies’ innovation efforts by 13.7% (with 95% confidence between 12.9% […]
Fairfield and Selvadurai, ‘Governing the Interface Between Natural and Formal Language in Smart Contracts’
ABSTRACT Much of the confusion about the proper regulation of smart contracts stems from the fact that both code and law are expressed in language. Natural (human) and formal (computer) languages are profoundly different, however. Natural language in the form of a true legal contract expresses human meaning and expectation. Code simply acts, and when […]
Philip Sales, ‘The Significance of Purpose in Purposive Construction of Legislation’
INTRODUCTION This conference commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the report of the Renton Committee on The Preparation of Legislation in 1975. The Renton report came at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the prevailing approach to statutory interpretation, both within the United Kingdom and in other common law jurisdictions. A few years before, in 1969, […]
Peel and Caripis, ‘Corporate Climate Litigation in Australasia: (re)Shaping the Private Law-Climate Interface’
ABSTRACT This paper examines the interface between climate change and private law in Australasia through the lens of corporate climate litigation, given its prevalence in the region. Corporate climate litigation concerns lawsuits raising climate issues (whether mitigation, adaptation or loss and damage), which utilize private law causes of action such as those under corporate, financial, […]
‘Defamation rules are applied to UK GDPR claim’
An interesting recent judgment in the High Court considers the extent to which rules in defamation law might also apply to data protection claims. In July 2024 His Honour Judge Lewis struck out a claim in defamation brought by Dale Vince against Associated Newspapers. The claim arose from a publication in the Daily Mail (and […]
‘What a Form Knows’
Last year, we posted about Consequential Damages: Alien Vomit or Intelligent Design (‘Alien Vomit’), by Tara Chowdhury, Faith Chudkowski, Amanda Dixon, Rishabh Sharma, Madison Sherrill, Hadar Tanne, Stephen J Choi, and Mitu Gulati (the Authors) now published in the Washington Law Review. One of the most intelligent of intelligent designers, Glenn D West, wrote a […]