Wojdyło - legal aspects of new technologies

Register now for the Global Legal Hackathon. The event aims to develop innovative technological and business solutions that help both lawyers and people seeking legal assistance.

The Polish edition will be held in Warsaw. It will run from Friday, February 22^nd to Sunday, February 24^th. In over 40 cities around the world, lawyers and IT specialists will meet to create a modern solution for the law industry. The winners of the Polish edition will receive cash prizes and a trip to the finals of the competition in New York.

Smart contracts eloquently capture the dilemma facing traditional legal systems, whose inefficiency has reached dimensions threatening systemic incoherence and failure to achieve the purposes the law is intended to serve. The system needs urgent reform. But the alternative of replacing the law as we know it with automation and algorithms threatens the loss of the internal profundity of the law and its openness to nuances. This dilemma will be more and more apparent in the years to come. In this context, it is essential to achieve a clear understanding of the hopes and threats integral to smart contracts.

This article discusses further an aspect of Agnieszka Kraińska’s article on legal personality and artificial intelligence. I take a slightly perspective of the subject. Even today new categories of legal entity are needed, unrelated to AI systems.

This will not be another article about cryptocurrencies. Instead, I want to focus on a dangerous precedent we may have overlooked in the broader debate over cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency exchanges and other enterprises operating on the cryptocurrency market have been targeted by the highly controversial practice of banks shutting down their accounts. This practice displays the universal threats arising along with the increasing digitalisation of commerce.

The Global Legal Hackathon last weekend (23–25 February 2018) offered an excellent opportunity to grasp the potential that can be released from cooperation between lawyers and IT specialists. Legal Tech solutions are more than just technological novelties. They are solutions that can protect our legal system against a serious crisis.

The Lex Mundi working group for blockchain has prepared a Global Token Sales Guide summarising the different regulatory regimes for ICOs (initial coin offerings) in key jurisdictions around the world. Wardyński & Partners authored the section on Poland.