A guide to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), 2023 - Flipbook - Page 40
These issues of jurisdiction and applicable law are explored further in the Law
Commission’s Smart legal contracts: Advice to Government. However, this
paper does make it clear that the approach used and endorsed by the courts is
yet to be established. For a summary of the Law Commission advice, see Legal
update: Law Commission publishes advice to government on smart contracts.
In October 2022, the Law Commission launched a review on how the rules of
private international law on governing law and jurisdiction apply to digital assets
and other emerging technology: Digital Assets: Which Law, Which Court? The
Law Commission aims to develop reform proposals in a public consultation
paper, which is due to be published in the second half of 2023.
Service
Usual methods of service permitted by the Civil Procedure Rules may
not be possible in respect of an NFT, as the owner of the wallet may
be unidentifiable, that is, “persons unknown”.
However, following a recent example in the US Supreme Court of the State of
New York’s 2 June 2022 order in LCX AG, -v- John Does Nos. 1 – 25), recent
UK case law has also concluded that service on persons unknown can be
effected by air dropping an NFT to a digital wallet over the blockchain.
