In this article, Akber Datoo explains how English contract law can provide useful, flexible tools to simplify and clarify the fundamental legal relationships between participants in decentralised networks.
18 March 2024In this article Thomas Wong considers two recent judgments of the Hong Kong Court of First Instance on the enforcement of Keepwell Deeds.
18 March 2024The Secretary of State recently argued in high profile disqualification proceedings that directors owe a freestanding, strict legal duty to know a company’s true financial position at all times while holding the office of director. This article argues that this position is clearly wrong as a matter of law, would be inconsistent with the directors’ duties in the Companies Act 2006, and would be fundamentally impractical and impossible to comply with.
18 March 2024In this article the authors consider why and how Excess Cash Flow mechanics have become more diluted in recent years.
18 March 2024By reference to previous authorities, this article discusses circumstances in which a bank might be held to be on inquiry or “put on notice” that an agent’s payment instruction to the bank is an attempt to defraud the bank’s customer.
18 March 2024In this article, Richard Hoyle considers a range of recent English cases which examine fiduciary duties relating to investment or divestment where fiduciaries were either motivated by, or, in contrast, downplayed ESG and climate change issues. In doing so he highlights the potential for fragmented outcomes when comparing different types of fiduciary relationship, including charitable trustees, pension trustees and directors, noting that for the time being, courts appear to be deferential to the approach which different fiduciaries choose to adopt to ESG and climate change issues.
18 March 2024In this article the author considers how to delineate the regulatory perimeter in relation to DeFi platforms. He considers where the line is to be drawn between a platform that is essentially a CeFi platform that uses smart contract components to provide virtual asset services, and DeFi proper, where the originators of the set of smart contracts are merely developing and deploying software as a public utility.
18 March 2024Pre-prepared board minutes are used in complex corporate transactions to ensure the proper steps are completed in the appropriate order. This article looks at cases in which the practice has been considered, and identifies some of the risks involved.
18 March 2024Frauds may be unauthorised (credit card fraud, phishing, for example) or authorised. Authorised frauds may be “pull” frauds, where the fraudster is given the victim’s account details and authorised to pull the funds from their account, or “push” frauds (APP), where the victim instructs its bank to send money to the fraudster’s account.According to the Payment Services Regulator (PSR), £485.2m was lost to APP fraud in 2022 alone. Back in May 2022, HM Treasury announced its intention to legislate to allow the PSR to require victim reimbursement for APP scams. That legislation came into effect on 29 June 2023, when the Financial Services and Markets Bill received Royal Assent. This article considers the implications of the mandatory reimbursement scheme propounded by the PSR.
18 March 2024Scottish moveable transactions law is currently outdated and much less useful in practice than the law in England and Wales. The Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Act 2023 will bring Scots law up to date when it comes into force and will arguably move it ahead of the law south of the border. This article tests whether or not that is the case when taking security over chattels.
18 March 2024