Digital Assets in Enforcement and Insolvency: Securing Creditor Access and Protecting Customer Interests in the Crypto World

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the national and international legal issues surrounding digital assets in enforcement and insolvency. Its primary aim is to ensure that the economic value of digital assets can be fully realised by creditors and other stakeholders through the legal processes and remedies available to them, and that holders of digital assets receive adequate protection. These legal issues are considered in diverse commercial and technical contexts, ranging from native cryptocurrencies to token, whether held directly or with custodians and other intermediaries. The book offers analysis on different levels: Firstly, it scrutinises the existing legal frameworks for enforcement and insolvency in various countries and evaluates the extent to which they can accommodate digital forms of value; secondly, it compares the approaches taken in different jurisdictions and addresses the cross-border issues of jurisdiction and conflict of laws issues that may arise; and thirdly, it focuses on international texts, such as the UNIDROIT Principles on Digital Assets and Private Law, as well as the Global Code of Digital Enforcement, and suggested avenues for further harmonisation and unification of the law. The book provides much-needed responses to the increasing significance of digital assets in modern insolvency and enforcement proceedings. It takes a unique global approach to a wide range of legal perspectives, drawing upon the contributors’ experience as leading practitioners, representatives of international organisations, and academics, in common law and civil law jurisdictions around the world. The book identifies the most pressing areas for law reform, and proposes solutions that are both legally robust as well as fit for practical purpose.

Christian Koller is Professor of European and International Civil Procedure Law and Vice-Dean of the Law Faculty at the University of Vienna, Austria.

John Linarelli is Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.

Matthias Lehmann is Professor of Private Law, International Private Law and Comparative Law at the University of Vienna, Austria and Professor of European and Comparative Business Law at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell is Associate Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain. She is also currently Sir Roy Goode Scholar at UNIDROIT, Rome (2021-22) and previously held the Chair of Excellence at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University.

Teresa is an arbitrator at the Madrid Court of Arbitration and the Spanish Court of Arbitration, a member of the Spanish Advertising Standards Tribunal (Autocontrol), member of the European Commission Expert Group on Liability and New Technologies, member of European Union Expert Group for the Observatory on the Online Platform Economy, Delegate for Spain before UNIDROIT and UNCITRAL Working Group VI on Security Interests, and member nominated by UNIDROIT of the Expert Study Group on a Fourth Protocol for the Cape Town Convention on International Security Interests.

She has held fellowships at the European Central Bank Legal Research Programme 2018 with a project on Fintech regulation, the Transatlantic Technology Law Forum, Stanford Law School, and was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Centre of European Law and Politics (ZERP), University of Bremen. In addition she has held visiting professorships at Oxford University, Toulouse 1 University Capitole, Columbia Law School, Tulane University Law School, the University of the Andes, the University of Turin, the University of Tokyo and University College London.