UK Follows The US In Approving Serving Legal Documents On Blockchain

Following in on the footsteps of the US, a UK court has approved serving legal documents on the blockchain. According to the court documents made public this week, the High Court of England and Wales green-lighted serving court papers through NFTs. Needless to say, this is a positive step forward for the NFT industry and presents a new use case for the growing ecosystem.

Let’s take a closer look at what the UK court said about serving legal documents on the blockchain. 

UK court’s decision on serving legal documents on blockchain

The UK court’s decision on serving legal documents on the blockchain came from a ​​case filed by Fabrizio D’Aloia. D’Aloia, an Italian engineer and the founder of an online gambling company, Microgame, sued cryptocurrency exchange Binance Holdings and other platforms. He claimed that ‘persons unknown’ fraudulently cloned his crypto assets on the platforms. 

Notably, the court has approved airdropping the legal documents as NFTs to two wallets. While D’Aloia originally owned the two wallets, the fraudsters had stolen these. With this, crypto scam victims can now sue unknown fraudsters in the UK. 

Reportedly, while the UK High Court granted the order on June 24, it was only made public this week. Furthermore, the court ruled that crypto exchanges were responsible for ensuring that the stolen crypto remained in their systems. 

“Anything that makes it easier to recover stolen crypto is helpful, and gives greater certainty to victims of crypto fraud that they can recover their assets,” said Christopher Whitehouse, a senior associate at RPC. 

US court sets the precedent

Back in June, the New York Court first approved serving legal documents as NFTs. At the time, the cryptocurrency exchange LCX served the defendant with a temporary restraining order via an NFT. 

Clearly, the use-cases of NFTs are growing. That said, it remains to be seen if more courts will follow suit with similar rulings.