SYNOPSIS
From ICOs to intellectual property; from provenance tracking to land and asset registration; and from interbank clearing to supply chain optimization. Blockchains will be everywhere. At least, if one is to believe the popular press and the price of bitcoin. In light of the increasingly bold predictions concerning the potential of blockchain technologies to transform traditional industries and business models, it is necessary to take a step back and re-evaluate the most popular claims. Is the technology ready for mainstream adoption? Will it solve legal problems or create an array of new ones? Are decentralized systems inherently better than centralized ones? More importantly, can the law in its present state accommodate blockchain technologies or is a legal revolution inevitable? If, as the hype suggests, the blockchain can dispense with trust, might it also dispense with the law as we traditionally understand it (being bound up with sovereign power)? Following the success of last year’s workshop on blockchains and intellectual property rights, ARCIALA is proud to organize an interdisciplinary event bringing together representatives from academia, practice and business. Providing a rare combination of technology and law as well as other disciplines, the workshop will consist of a number of presentations and panel discussions that will attempt to shed light on the legal implications of blockchain technologies. Professor Dan Hunter will present on the legal significance of the blockchain, identifying the legal fields it will disrupt (and why). Juan Llanos from Consensys will elaborate on how smart contracts and blockchains reshape policymaking, regulation & compliance. Professor Kelvin Low and Assistant Professor Eliza Mik will critically evaluate the popular claims surrounding the “blockchain legal revolution.” Additional insights will be gained from representatives of the Singapore blockchain space, including talks on the tokenization of art, gold and fiat currencies.
SPEAKERS
Marcelo García CASIL is Founder and CEO of Maecenas and DXMarkets. Having previously worked at a number of large global banks, Marcelo has wide-ranging experience in designing and building large-scale enterprise-grade systems with a focus on investment banking and financial solutions. An an entrepreneur, Marcelo has specialised in blockchain and financial technology, primarily in areas covering tokenisation of assets and new capital markets. His strong technical architecture and leadership skills have earned him the recognition and endorsement from amongst his clients, teammates and peers. Marcelo frequently speaks and presents at industry events, conducts specialised workshops and training sessions, and provides expert advice to companies.
Dan HUNTER is the founding dean of Swinburne Law School. He is an international expert in internet and intellectual property law, and in artificial intelligence and cognitive science models of law. He holds a PhD from Cambridge on the nature of legal reasoning, as well as computer science and law degrees from Monash University and a Master of Laws by research from the University of Melbourne. He has taught at schools in Australia, England, and the United States, including Cambridge University, Melbourne Law School, New York Law School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Hunter regularly publishes on the theory of intellectual property, and on artificial intelligence and legal technology. His most recent books have been The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Intellectual Property (OUP, 2012), Amateur Media (Routledge, 2012) and two books on gamification, The Gamification Toolkit (Wharton Digital, 2015) and For the Win (Wharton Digital, 2012) (the latter of which has been translated into multiple languages). He is the recipients of over $2m in grants from numerous sources, including the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the Australian Research Council. He has been a judge for the resolution of domain name disputes for the World Intellectual Property Organization and is the recipient of a Fulbright Postgraduate Fellowship, a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, a Smithsonian Fellowship, an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship, a Herchel Smith Research Fellowship in Intellectual Property Law, and a Science Commons Fellowship. His current research is focused on the use of technology within law, notably the use of artificial intelligence in sentencing, the legal implications of the blockchain, and the future of legal practice. He is also undertaking a range cultural histories of intellectual property in the postwar period, including work on LEGO bricks, Barbie dolls, modernist furniture, and the social significance of luxury handbags. His co-edited book A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. In his spare time, he is the co-founder of two startups, one in educational technology and one in legal tech.
Juan LLANOS is an international thought leader in strategy, operational excellence and leadership in the anti-money laundering and regulatory compliance domains, and has been recognized as a pioneer in the development of compliance and risk management best practices for the money transfer industry and the emerging blockchain and Bitcoin industries. He is currently FinTech and RegTech Lead at blockchain venture production studio ConsenSys. He is also a mentor and advisor at various crypto-currency and technology start-ups, and writes about risk and virtual currencies in his blog. In addition, he serves as a member of the Bitcoin Foundation‘s Regulatory Affairs and Education Committees, co-Chair of DATA’s AML Working Group, and COALA Global’s Regulatory Oversight Working Group. Since 2002, Juan has been building and managing compliance programs all over the world –while dedicating his work to supporting the underserved and unbanked. During this time, Juan helped develop a large portfolio of innovative monetary services and tools –such as bill payments, money transfer products and Mexico’s first pre-paid debit card. Juan co-developed this suite of new financial services at Unidos Financial Services, Inc. and Remesas Quisqueyana, Inc., holding a number of senior positions, while building a reputation as an internationally recognized compliance thought leader. More recently, Juan was EVP of Strategic Partnerships and Chief Transparency Officer at Bitreserve.org (today, Uphold), and EVP of Business Development at blockchain analytics startup Skry (formerly, Coinalytics). A Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist since 2003, Juan has been a lecturer, moderator, panelist and organizer of Anti-Money Laundering, Bitcoin, Blockchain and Regulatory Compliance conferences, seminars, workshops and webcasts on dozens of occasions around the globe. In August of 2008, Juan was granted permanent resident status by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services “by reason of extraordinary ability” in the fields of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT).
Kelvin F K LOW is Professor of Law at City University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, he held appointments at National University of Singapore, the University of Hong Kong, and Singapore Management University. Kelvin’s research interest spans the field of private law but with a particular interest in property, broadly defined. He is the co-author, together with Michael Bridge, Louise Gullifer, and Gerard McMeel of the second edition of The Law of Personal Property, and the co-author, together with Tang Hang Wu of the third edition of the leading land law textbook in Singapore, Tan Sook Yee's Principles of Singapore Land Law. He has published internationally with leading journals such as the Law Quarterly Review, the Modern Law Review, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly and Legal Studies. His works have been cited by all levels of the Singapore Courts, the English High Court, the Malaysian Federal Court, the English, Scottish, New Zealand and Australian Law Commissions, as well as leading texts such as Chitty on Contracts, Benjamin’s Sale of Goods and Goode on Commercial Law. He is on the editorial board of Trust Law International and is the co-section editor for Singapore and Hong Kong for the Property Law Review.
Eliza MIK has worked in-house in a number of software companies, Internet start-ups and telecommunication providers in Australia, Poland, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates advising on e-commerce, payment systems, software licensing and technology procurement. Her roles included the drafting and negotiation of contracts relating to the sale or purchase of software and to DBOT agreements relating to voice and data networks. fixed and mobile. She also served as the primary legal contact for all departments dealing with customer privacy and network security. Throughout her professional career Eliza maintained a keen interest in all developments (both legal and technical) pertaining to the Internet and its use as an enabler of commerce. Since joining SMU, she has published in the areas of contract, e-commerce and internet law. Eliza is involved in two ongoing research projects, one relating to the legal implications of blockchains (focusing on smart contracts), the other relating to the use of the Internet-of-Things in retail environments.
Chen Shien TEO is the Company Counsel for Digix, a blockchain services company most known for the asset tokenization of gold. Using supply chain blockchain technologies, it aims to bring a stablecoin to choppy cryptocurrency waves that can be used for crossborder trade settlement and foster financial inclusion.
Stanley YONG is formerly Specialist Leader of the Innovation Acceleration Office at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, he led the research and development of Project Ubin, the central bank's multi-stage investigation of central bank digital currency on distributed ledger technologies. He advocated the FSTI Proof-of-Concept scheme, which is the first grant scheme accessible to start-ups from the MAS, and set up its governance structure. He was also instrumental in formulating the Singapore Smart Financial Centre Strategy which is the basis of the fintech development programme of the MAS. He was previously a market risk specialist with the Specialist Risk Supervision Department, where he was Deputy Director in charge of the Model Risk validation team assisting with Basel III’s fundamental review of the trading book work, as well as inspections of the Treasury functions of complex international banks in Singapore. Prior to that, he was Assistant Director at the Payment Systems Unit which oversees the operations of the RTGS system in Singapore, and Assistant Secretary to the Singapore Clearing House Association. In this role, he worked on the cross-government agency electronic payments committee. Stanley has an MBA and a Masters in Advanced Finance from IE Business School in Spain and MS in CS and Statistics from the University of Illinois, graduating at the top of each cohort in each case.
CHAIR
Kung-Chung LIU holds an LL.B. and LL.M. from National Taiwan University and a Doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilian Universitaet (University of Munich). He was a Research Fellow at Academia Sinica, Taiwan until 2017. In 2003, he was a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow for the IP Academy of Singapore. Professor Liu has served as one of the founding Commissioners of the National Communications Commission in Taiwan between 2006 and 2007. In 2014-15, he was a Visiting Professor at the School of Law, Singapore Management University, and the Founding Director of the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA). In addition, he has been co-appointed Professor at the Renmin University, China (2017), and the Graduate Institute of Technology, Innovation & Intellectual Property Management, National Chengchi University, Taiwan (since 2010).
David LLEWELYN is Deputy Dean and Professor (Practice) in the School of Law, Singapore Management University and Professor of Intellectual Property Law, King’s College London. He is joint author of Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks and Trade Names (15th ed supplement, 2014) and Cornish, Llewelyn & Aplin, Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyright, Trade Marks & Allied Rights (8th ed., 2013), and his business book Invisible Gold in Asia: Creating Wealth through Intellectual Property was published in 2010. David is Senior Advisor at local commercial law firm Acton Law LLC. Before moving to live in Singapore in 2010, as well as teaching on the London LLM since 1982, he practiced as a solicitor in London for more than 25 years after qualifying with Linklaters and was the partner heading the IP/IT practice at White & Case in London from 1999 to 2010. From 2005 to 2007, David was Director of the IP Academy Singapore and between 2007 and 2012, its Deputy Chairman and External Director.
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