Oxford Business Law Blog

Trust is an integral aspect of all human relationships. Trust facilitates social cooperation and coordination. Contractual relationships are no exception. Non-legal mechanisms such as reputation and...

Autonomous Systems and the Law (C.H. Beck/Nomos 2019) by Nikita Aggarwal, Horst Eidenmüller, Luca Enriques, Jennifer Payne, and Kristin van Zwieten (eds) is a collection of papers dealing with the...

The question of how people can trade with each other independently of national laws is a question that has kept philosophers, economists and lawyers busy for centuries. In recent years, the...

Blockchain technologies promise to execute tasks that have traditionally been settled by legal institutions. Some providers of such technologies explicitly offer ‘to act as a digital jurisdiction’...

Inspired by present technological advances we redefine a financial derivative contract which is able to be processed in a fully digital and algorithmic way. OTC Derivatives and their historic...

Blockchain technology could reshape the economic institutions of capitalism, to borrow the title of a celebrated book by Oliver Williamson. In a recent paper, I deal with contractual agreements that...

The term ‘smart contract’ refers to computer code that is designed automatically to execute contractual duties upon the occurrence of a trigger event. Referring to a 1997 paper by Szabo, the simple...

Recent developments in 'smart' digital technologies, in particular blockchain technology, are changing and challenging the framework in which business is conducted. A prominent feature of the...

This blog post tackles the problem of defining smart contracts. In particular, it reviews the existing definitions of smart contracts in some of the main laws enacted and scholarly articles published...

Reporters are in the habit of looking at emerging technologies in isolation when describing their benefits, and that’s certainly the case with biometrics, blockchains, smart contracts, artificial...

Proprietary, sophisticated computer algorithms are a hidden yet central element of how we work and play today. Businesses use algorithms internally to make decisions and improve their service...

Like with any new and hyped topic, the current discussion on smart contracts is rather complex and confusing. I believe that asking What, Who and Why can help to structure the debate and shed some...

If Alice wishes to buy real estate from Bert free of defects, she will – under the old law – enter into a contract with Bert contemplating their transaction. Their contract will be governed by the...

Today, consumers are provided with a vast array of mandatory consumer rights, ranging from statutory warranty and cancellation rights to claims for compensation in cases of impaired performance...

Blockchains and the GDPR The imminent entry into force of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coincides with pronounced hype surrounding blockchains as a new method of data storage and...

Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and ethereum, have not only risen to public attention as novel means of payments. Rather, as we explain in a recent article, the current hype is fueled by financial...

Legal technology is starting to attract serious attention. Just a few years ago, when I was still in law school, talking to a lawyer or professor about legal tech was like pulling teeth. Maybe it was...

Annual General Meetings (AGMs) are considered dull mandatory yearly rituals that provide entertainment to some small shareholders, but, above all, cause many business lawyers and executive officers a...