This event will consist of a one-hour seminar presented by Associate Professor Jason Grant Allen, editor of the recent Oxford University Press volume
Smart Legal Contracts: Computable Law in Theory and Practice, joined by Natasha Blycha, author of one of the volume’s 20 chapters followed by a keynote presentation by Justice Aedit Abdullah and a panel discussion among leading legal practitioners, scholars, and computer scientists.
In recent years, blockchain-based “smart contracts” have become a familiar point of discussion as the highs and lows of the cryptoasset ecosystem garner media attention and increasingly involve consumers and institutional investors beyond the stereotypical “coinbro” demographic. But what are these “smart contracts”, and is it ever appropriate to call them “contracts” at all? This is a difficult question: many within the crypto movement disclaim the intention of creating anything “legal” at all, casting “smart contracts” as purely technical devices that are functionally equivalent to a legal contract but displace the need for law entirely. Increasingly, this appears misguided; courts and regulators are grappling with the legal dimensions of software that appears to record or perform contractual promises. Moving beyond blockchain, work has been going on for decades to express legal (including contractual) prose in a formalised way such that it can be “machine readable”. Sadly, much of the current debate about blockchain-based “smart contracts” talks past the body of work more or less entirely. Zooming out, it is clear that the formation and performance of contracts will be impacted by secular trends in digitalisation. Smart Legal Contracts: Computable Law in Theory and Practice is is a landmark investigation into one of the most important trends at the interface of law and technology: the effort to harness emerging digital technologies to change the way that parties form and perform contracts. It assesses how contractual promises are expressed in software and how code-based artefacts can be incorporated within more conventional legal structures. As the first interdisciplinary volume to explore these questions in a technology-agnostic way, the volume presents a number of perspectives, from within and outside the legal profession, on the digitalisation of contracts (and contract law).
This seminar, by the book’s editor, is integrated with the world premier book launch featuring a keynote presentation by one of Singapore’s leading digital judges and a panel of recognised experts.
PROGRAMME
|
| 2:15 PM |
Registration |
| |
|
|
2:30 PM
|
What’s in a Name? “Smart Contracts” and the Contract Stack by Assoc Prof Jason Grant Allen and Natasha Blycha |
| |
|
| 3:15 PM |
Break |
| |
|
| 3:30 PM |
Welcome Remarks by Asst Prof Lim How Khang |
| |
|
| 3:40 PM |
Introduction to Smart Legal Contracts: Computable Law in Theory and Practice by Assoc Prof Jason Grant Allen |
| |
|
| 3:55 PM |
Keynote by Justice Aedit Abdullah |
| |
|
| 4:15 PM |
Break |
| |
|
| 4:30 PM |
Panel Discussion
Moderator: Assoc Prof Jason Grant Allen
Panelists:
Natasha Blycha
Grace Chong
Lam Chee Kin
Daniel Liebau
Wong Meng Weng
Yeong Zee Kin |
| |
|
| 5:30 PM |
End of Event |
SPEAKERS
Jason Grant Allen
Dr Jason Grant Allen is an Associate Professor of Law at SMU Yong Pung How School of Law and a founding Partner of Stirling & Rose, an Australian incorporated legal practice specialising in the law of digital transformation. Jason has researched and written extensively on “smart contracts” and digital assets and is involved in several international working groups, including the UNIDROIT project on digital assets in private law and the Asian Business Law Institute’s project on legal issues presented by cryptoassets. This session is based on his recent volume (co-edited with Peter Hunn of the Accord Project and UK Jurisdiction Taskforce), Smart Legal Contracts: Computable Law in Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press 2022).
Natasha Blycha
Natasha is a Partner and the Managing Director of Stirling & Rose. Prior to founding Stirling & Rose, Natasha led the Global Digital Law Group at Herbert Smith Freehills (‘HSF’) and managed a global team across US, Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom, Africa and Australia.
Natasha specialises in crypto and NFT investments, new governance in web 3.0, digital ethics, smart legal contracts, and human rights. Natasha has lived and worked in the US, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Prior to founding the Digital Law Group at HSF, Natasha worked as a Competition Lawyer for another major commercial firm and has also served as an Associate to former Justice Heerey of the Federal Court of Australia.
She was also one of the founders of the Digital Law Association (‘DLA’) which is an “organisation that is dedicated to advancing a fairer, more inclusive, and democratic voice at the intersection of technology, law and policy”. Natasha won the 2021 Financial Times most Innovative Lawyer Award and the 2020 Lawyers Weekly Thought Leader of the year award.
Natasha is also one of the authors of the Oxford Smart Legal Contracts textbook and has published extensively on topics such as DAOs, AI, and Smart legal Contracts.
Justice Aedit Abdullah
Justice Aedit Abdullah was appointed Judicial Commissioner in 2014 and High Court Judge on 30 September 2017.
Justice Abdullah obtained a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1994, as well as a Bachelor of Civil Law (First Class) from the University of Oxford in 1998 and a Master in Public Management from NUS in 2007.
He joined the Singapore Legal Service in 1995 and began his career as a Justices’ Law Clerk. He then taught at the Faculty of Law, NUS, before re-joining the Singapore Legal Service. He has held various appointments, such as Deputy Public Prosecutor, Deputy Senior State Counsel and District Judge of the Subordinate Courts (renamed as State Courts in 2014). He was appointed Chief Prosecutor (Economic Crimes and Governance Division), and subsequently Chief Prosecutor (Criminal Justice Division) at the Attorney-General’s Chambers in 2011 and served as special counsel at the Monetary Authority of Singapore from January 2008 to June 2009. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2012.
He is the Judge in charge of Transformation and Innovation in the Judiciary, and is also Chair of the Promotion of Legal Technology Innovation Committee of the Singapore Academy of Law.
Grace Chong
Grace is the Head of Financial Regulatory for Singapore in Gibson Dunn. Grace has extensive experience advising on cross-border and complex regulatory matters, including licensing and conduct of business requirements, regulatory investigations, and regulatory change. A former in-house counsel at the MAS, Grace regularly interacts with key regulators, is closely involved in regional regulatory reform initiatives and has led discussions with regulators on behalf of the financial services industry.
Grace has advised banks, exchanges, asset managers and start-ups across Singapore and Hong Kong on regulatory issues such as banking and payments regulations, implementation of electronic trading platforms, licensing, crypto funds setup, outsourcing, virtual banking, corporate acquisitions, and data protection and security.
Grace has been consistently named as one of Singapore’s top 10 FinTech lawyers. Further, she is recommended in Financial Services Regulatory for Singapore by The Legal 500 2022 guide which notes that she “is one of the best crypto regulatory lawyers in Singapore and is very responsive and personable.
Lam Chee Kin
Lam Chee Kin is accountable for the team which manages the legal and regulatory risk of DBS across legal entities, segments and geographies. Prior to joining, he held various legal and compliance portfolios in Standard Chartered Bank, JPMorgan, Rajah & Tann and Allen & Gledhill, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer, South East Asia for JPMorgan. A lawyer by profession, he has particular expertise in financial services regulation, and financial markets product and business structuring. Currently, however, he is focusing on the impact of digitisation, and the evolution of frameworks that will be necessary to cope with digitisation and data, together with second-order issues such as how criminal activity will also evolve, and how legal and compliance departments can benefit from analytics and AI. Chee Kin currently serves on the Advisory Board to the Singapore Management University School of Law, the Advisory Panel to the NUS Centre for Banking and Finance Law, and the Data Protection Advisory Committee of Singapore. In 2015, Chee Kin was recognised as a Distinguished Fellow by the Institute of Banking and Finance in the field of compliance.
Daniel Liebau
Daniel Liebau is Chief Investment Officer for the Modular Blockchain Fund. Its investment strategy focuses on sustainable smart contract platforms. Daniel's firm, Modular Asset Management, is a spin-off of Millennium. Before that, Daniel started a firm called Lightbulb Capital in 2014 that mainly focused on advisory and education work around blockchain and digital assets. He has lived in Asia for the last 14 years, mainly in Singapore. But he also spent time in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Daniel is an Adjunct Faculty member at SMU, teaching blockchain, digital assets and decentralized finance courses. His research has been published in academic journals. After 15 years in the IT departments of Investment Banks, his last corporate job was as COO on the board of HSBC Securities Singapore.
Wong Meng Weng
Meng is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and technologist, specialising in deep-tech Internet infrastructure and open-source startups.
In 1995, he co-founded pobox.com, an early commercial email service. In 2003 he led the development and global adoption of the email standard SPF (RFC4408). In 2005, he co-founded a venture-funded Big Data startup which was later sold to FICO.
Later, he co-founded hackerspace.sg, the first makerspace in Singapore. His background in innovation is informed by Everett Rogers, Geoffrey Moore, Clayton Christensen, William Janeway, Mariana Mazzucato, and Simon Wardley; by sitting on a variety of government panels in Singapore, most recently on the Committee for the Future Economy's subcommittee on Future Corporate Capabilities and Innovation (Startups); and by investing in over 70 startups as an angel and at JFDI.Asia, the first startup accelerator in Southeast Asia. He has held fellowships at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, at Ca'Foscari University of Venice (computational linguistics) and at the CodeX Center for Legal Informatics at Stanford. He programs in Perl, Javascript, Prolog, Z3, and Haskell, and is currently involved in designing the DSL for Legalese.
Yeong Zee Kin
As Assistant Chief Executive (Data Innovation and Protection Group), Zee Kin oversees IMDA’s AI and Data Industry development strategy with the key responsibility in developing forward-thinking governance on AI and data in Singapore. He also spearheaded the development of Singapore’s Model AI Governance Framework, which won the UNITU WSIS Prize in 2019. He is currently a member of the OECD Network of Experts on AI (ONE AI), and was a member of the AI Group of Experts at the OECD (AIGO) which developed the OECD Principles on AI.
In his capacity as Deputy Commissioner of PDPC, Zee Kin oversees the development, administration and enforcement of the Personal Data Protection Act (2012). His key responsibilities include managing the formulation and implementation of policies relating to the protection of personal data, as well as the issuing of enforcement directions for organisational actions. As a well-regarded expert on data privacy issues, he has spearheaded various public and sector-specific activities to raise awareness and compliance in data protection, and is currently participating as an expert in the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI)’s Data Governance Working Group, which addresses data protection issues at the intersection of AI development and deployment.
FEES
a. Early Bird Price (registration by 20 September 2022)
Registration fee of S$240.75* (inclusive of GST) applies.
b. Regular Price (registration after 20 September 2022)
Registration fee of S$267.50* (inclusive of GST) applies.
*Please note that there will be no refund of any fees should the participant cancel the registration/ fail to attend the event. However, registration is transferable. Notice of any change in participant should be sent to the Academy via email: smulawacademy [at] smu.edu.sg, by 27 September 2022.
SMU Law Academy reserves the right to cancel or postpone any event. In such case, we will arrange for the refund of fees paid.
