Search

Blockchain technology becomes relevant in economic exchange as it lowers costs and contributes to cost-efficiency and effectiveness of economic transactions. The key quality of Blockchain lies in ensuring the authenticity of digital data: trust in the traditional legal relationship has been replaced by digital verification of data in blocks. As an important phenomenon, Blockchain calls for legal answers on the issues arising from its application. An example of this development is the legal regime of smart contracts. A smart contract is a transaction in which any rights and obligations of the contracting parties are programmed in a code. Being the result of Blockchain technology application, such a contract implies the need for trust between the contracting parties. As a legal phenomenon, Blockchain (smart contract) technology raises the issue of liability for performing contractual obligations. Smart contracts can minimize certain contract risks and additionally simplify contract execution. They are immediately put into effect, without the need for any further interaction between the parties. The essential components of smart contracts are the digitally verifiable data and the automatic performance of legally relevant actions based on digitally received and processed information. All of the enlisted issues are important for proper understanding of liability of Blockchain actors.

Magistrska naloga “Pogodbeno pravo in pametne pogodbe (t.im. smart contracts): analiza izpodbojnosti pravnega posla zaradi napak volje” obravnava pravne učinke pametnih pogodb na tehnologiji porazdeljene evidence kolikor se v pravni teoriji ter stroki zastavlja vprašanje pravno-veljavne sklenitve takšnih pogodb. Avtor navedeno vprašanje razrešuje pod hipotezo veljavno sklenjene pametne pogodbe, če so izpolnjeni splošni pogoji glede sklepanja pogodb z vidika soglasja volj, pogodbenega predmeta ter kavze. V skladu s hipotezo se v nadaljevanju avtor opredeli do pravnih učinkov potencialnega izpodbijanja pogodbe zaradi napak volje ter navedeno aplicira na teoretsko različne konceptualizacije pametne pogodbe, poudarjeno na izpodbijanju zaradi zmote. V predmetni magistrski nalogi se posredno opravi še primerjava med sorodnimi rikardijanskimi pogodbami in nadalje, razišče domet odgovornosti podjemnika, to je programerja-strokovnjaka, kateremu je naročena izdelava pametne pogodbe za stranko. Pri tem je možna analogna uporaba pravil podjemne pogodbe. Avtor zaključuje, da izvorno nepravniško poimenovanje “pogodba” lahko pomeni pogodbo v pravnem smislu ter vzpostavi razlikovanje. Finalna pravno-ekonomska analiza pametnih pogodb v magistrski nalogi tako pokaže, da so sicer dobrodošla novost v gospodarskem prometu, ki pa prinaša nova tveganja za pogodbene stranke (oz. uporabnike), saj v prid garantirani samoizvršitvi efektivno preprečuje eksternalizacijo sklenitvenih napak na sopogodbenika, kar pa po drugi strani krepi pomen predvidljivosti ter pogodbene avtonomije strank. Odprto pa ostaja še vprašanje sodne interpretacije vsebine zapisa, saj sodne prakse konkretno s tega področja ni. The masters thesis presented here deals with legal effects of blockchain-based smart contracts from the perspective of contractual-law in theory and law in action, especially with respect to their legal bindingness. The main hypothesis is that smart contracts are perfectly valid contractual agreements, provided that prerequisite legal elements such as the meeting of minds, causa (i.e. consideration), legally-valid obligation, are in fact present. Actual presence of cited elements implies voidness of smart contracts which author tackles through the doctrine of mistake. Author furthermore differentiates between smart contracts and the so-called Ricardian contracts and lastly, explores potential civil liability of a programmer that can arise from his erronous drafting of a legal smart contract for another person to use. Possible solutions offered are analogous to those that are generally used for legal interpretation of service contracts with regard to programmers. Finally, author concludes that the term “contract” originally from the area of IT-technology, can also mean legal-contract and draws a distinction. With respect to the legal and economic analysis of smart contracts presented in this thesis it is therefore concluded that - while smart contracts should be welcomed as a useful expansion of legitimate commercial transactions - this does not come without it’s inherent newlyfound risk to parties of smart contracts. While they guarantee perfect performance, legal smart contract infact effectively precludes its party from externalising any mistakes of will that can arise in the process of concluding such contract while conversly, this same effect enhances party reliance and party autonomy. Also, it remains to be seen how courts would interpret legal smart contracts and their intended effects due to non-existence of court decisions from this particular area.

The aim of a contract is to provide legal certainty to the parties and to define the toolkit of remedies available in the event of a dispute. In modern business practice, the ultimate goal of a contract is to eliminate or reduce the possibility of legal liability; the issue of efficiency and effectiveness of contract implementation is not the primary goal. The impact of technology in the concept of contract creation, implementation and control has redefined the traditional approach which implies that contracts are written by "lawyers for lawyers". The contemporary practice bears witness of the correlation and intertwining of law and technology in a way that exceeds the scope and goes beyond the relationship between the regulator and the regulated object; in effect, technology becomes an organic element of law, its origin, application, control and development. A smart contract, as an example of the influence of technology in the field of regulating contractual relations, automatically activates the obligation, in accordance with the terms and conditions that the parties agreed upon and entered in the program code. Based on the Blockchain technology, a smart contract profoundly changes the paradigm of trust in a person with the paradigm of trust in a program code. The basic limitation of smart contracts is their capacity to convert complex legal concepts into the computational form readable by a program code. Thus, they cannot function in a pure form (entirely defined by a program code). The code needs to be complemented by text. The legal form that should bridge the gap between the smart contract and the traditional contract is the Ricardian agreement. The Ricardian contract uses the best from both worlds. On the one hand, the key terms of the contract are in software-readable program code format; on the other hand, more complex provisions that are not suitable for conversion into an algorithm are contained in additional instructions that are part of the Ricardian agreement. In terms of legal obligation, the Ricardian contract reflects exclusively and only the intention of the parties, without implying a legal obligation that could be formally established only by concluding the intended future agreement. As such, the Ricardian contract can play the role of a guide for the interpretation of the prospective agreement, which gives it a certain value in case of a dispute.

Автор анализирует сущность и содержание смарт-контракта, исследует предшествующие ему способы самоисполнения простых сделок, технологическое содержание такого контракта и юридические проблемы, возникающие в деятельности компаний при использовании смарт-контрактов в договорных отношениях. Выявляет особое значение и роль технического специалиста при создании таких контрактов. Делает вывод о возможности появления проблем при их реализации и предлагает способы фиксации условий смарт-контракта для устранения противоречий и ошибок.

While the blockchain-based smart contract still finds itself with a considerable amount of technical and legal hurdles to overcome, the cloud e-contract, not having any similar issues, has started to see massive increases in adoption over the last few years. Being a traditional legal document that is signed digitally, the cloud e-contract does not disrupt contemporary legal praxis or require hosting complex peer-to-peer infrastructure, which sets it apart as a pragmatic alternative for digitalizing contractual interactions. In this hybrid computer science and economics paper, we use our insights from working on solutions for digital contract handling in Industry 4.0 to predict how e-contracts will be adopted by and shaped for the supply chain and manufacturing industries, as well as how that shaping will make interoperation between cloud e-contract providers a significant issue. We then proceed to outline how our contract network architecture could be used as a blue-print for standardized interoperability between those providers, partly by presenting how it enables four different example use cases. Lastly, we discuss the incentives for cloud e-contract providers and other stakeholders to pursue or oppose early standardization of interoperability, as well as how cloud e-contract providers could benefit from integrating smart contracts with their e-contracts. DigiPrime Arrowhead Tools