Written Evidence – House of Lords Digital Assets (etc) Bill

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Schäfer, Quentin B. and Hoffmann, Linus (2024) Written Evidence – House of Lords Digital Assets (etc) Bill. UK Parliament. (https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8650/propert...)

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Abstract

The Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill [HL] bill is likely to increase legal uncertainty in the context of digital assets. On this basis, we would favour the amendment of the bill in order to restrict its application to cryptoassets, failing which it should not be passed into law. Our opinion is based on the consequences of the application of the Bill to digital assets beyond cryptoassets. The explanatory notes of the Bill seem to indicate that the intention of the bill is to enable the common law to allocate personal property rights to a substantial range of digital assets beyond cryptoassets. In our view, this is doctrinally and consequentially unjustified. It is fundamentally appropriate to preserve the common law in this area. There is no obvious deficiency in the way that the common law treats personal property that would require the substitution of a statutory framework for common law principles. A comprehensive statutory framework is unlikely to solve more issues that it will create. Submitted as Written Evidence to the House of Lords’ Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill [HL] Special Public Bill Committee on 18/12/2024.

ORCID iDs

Schäfer, Quentin B. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4064-0845 and Hoffmann, Linus ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8877-9236;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)