Blockchain technology is the more successful side-product of Bitcoin and crypto-currencies. It has become the cornerstone of FinTech, challenging traditional (private) law beliefs. Regulators are faced with a choice between legislation and a regulatory sandbox approach in order to attract digitised business. The lecture will explore various applications of blockchain technology in order to determine how the law handles the storage, transfer and trading of financial instruments via blockchains and associated platform structures. This will include an assessment of recent court cases from Japan and Singapore (Mount Gox and B2C2 v. Quoine) where judges had to qualify the legal nature of digital signals and assets. Robo-advice is as yet the most striking example of combining artificial intelligence with blockchain technology. In ascertaining the potential for legislative intervention, a survey over U.S. blockchain statutes and national legislative projects in Europe will be provided (including the implications of the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation).

About the speaker:
Prof. Rainer Kulms is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the US Law Department at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Adjunct Professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, Lecturer in Law at the University of Hamburg, and Editor-in-Chief of the European Business Organization Law Review. He received his doctoral (Dr. iur.) and post-doctoral (Habilitation) degrees from the University of Hamburg, obtained an LL.M. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and was Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (Wolfson College). He has taught at the Universities of Hamburg, Belgrade, Calcutta, Cluj, Paris IX, Taipei, Timişoara, Sarajevo, Warsaw and Xi’an, the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, the China-EU School of Law and the National University of Singapore.  

Light  refreshment will be served. Live broadcast will be available at Breakout Room 5, The CUHK Graduate Law Centre, 2/F Bank of America Tower, Central.