newtech.law

Author: Jacek Czarnecki

Advisor to blockchain projects. Creator and participant in many initiatives involving the overlap between blockchain and the law, in Poland and abroad. One of his current projects is organising the Warsaw branch of Legal Hackers. He collaborates with the New Technologies practice at Wardyński & Partners. Write to the author: jacekczarnecki@protonmail.com
Posted on Categories blockchain, changes in law

Dematerialisation of securities in Poland: Chaos or a brilliant plan?

Across all fields of life we witness groundbreaking changes brought by new technologies. Progressive digitalisation is not sparing the financial markets, which are indeed perceived as an area that will be shifted almost entirely into the digital world. The goods traded on financial markets rarely take material form, but are typically some type of abstract right.

The basic and most obvious challenge for digitalisation of financial markets is to eliminate paper where entries in IT systems prove to work better. Traditionally and historically, securities have taken paper form, but that clearly does not meet the requirements of contemporary trading on financial markets studded with state-of-the-art technologies.

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Posted on Categories other

Blockchain/DLT in the Polish Capital Markets Strategy

In an earlier article I wrote about FinTech in the draft Polish Capital Markets Strategy (SRRK). There were lots of FinTech strands in the strategy, undoubtedly confronting one of the identified structural barriers to the growth of the capital markets in Poland, described as “outdated technologies or a lack of technologies in key segments of the market, including inadequate investment in FinTech solutions.”

The final version of the SRRK strategy, adopted by the Council of Ministers on 1 October 2019, continues to devote many remarks to FinTech. Use of competitive new technologies is included among the five fundamental principles to be followed in implementing the strategy. Considering that over the last few years there has hardly been any technology generating as much interest on the financial markets as DLT/blockchain, it was natural to include it in the strategy.

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Posted on Categories blockchain

A single shareholder register maintained by multiple entities?

Due to provisions implementing the simple stock company into Polish law, and provisions on “dematerialisation of private joint-stock companies”, the Commercial Companies Code contains cryptic wording on the option of maintaining a shareholder register for these two types of companies, “in electronic form, as a dispersed and decentralised database”.

We have addressed the question of this option repeatedly because it is potentially an opening for “tokenisation” of shares. This means that in a simple stock company or joint-stock company, shares can be issued as blockchain tokens. Simple rewording of two identical provisions in the Commercial Companies Code could therefore connect the world of decentralised registers and shareholdings, the latter being a concept recognised in law, in both of these types of joint-stock companies.

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Posted on Categories anti-money laundering

The future of EU money-laundering laws: Will there be an AML Regulation?

The question posed in the title may seem surprising. Only four years ago another AML directive was published, marking the next stage of development of EU rules on money laundering and financing of terrorism (known as the 4th AML Directive or AMLD4). Its predecessor, AMLD3, was adopted 10 years before that. And just over a year ago significant changes in EU law were adopted, known as AMLD5, and the member states still have time to implement the latest changes into their national legal systems, with a deadline in January 2020.

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Posted on Categories blockchain, fintech

The legal status of tokens on blockchain: A few thoughts on new findings by UKNF

At the end of September 2019, Rahim Blak published the response issued to him by the Office of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (UKNF) to questions concerning the possible application of financial regulations to his planned and realised activity involving raising capital through distribution on the market of personal tokens. Although the response was issued in a specific case submitted to the Innovation Hub, given the lack of a public general position of KNF on the legal status of tokens, the document is also relevant to the broader market.

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Posted on Categories anti-money laundering

The next step in global regulation of crypto assets

For over five years, including within this blog, we have written about the changes in application of anti money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regulations to activity involving crypto assets. But further legal changes and notable new interpretations continue to arise.

As I wrote nearly a year ago, at the request of the G20 countries the issue of crypto assets was taken up recently by several key global organisations involved in establishing standards in specific fields. One of them is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organisation appointed to develop and assist in implementing and monitoring standards for combating money laundering, financing of terrorism, and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

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