Smart legal contracts


Produced in partnership with Benjamin Mendelson of Founders Law
Practice notes

Smart legal contracts


Produced in partnership with Benjamin Mendelson of Founders Law

Practice notes
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This Practice Note explains what a smart legal Contract (or smart contract) is, as a technology and as a legal instrument, and provides a summary of the Law Commission’s advice to UK government which concluded that the current legal framework in the UK is able to facilitate and support the use of Smart legal contracts.

It includes a breakdown of the legal principles surrounding the formation, form, formality and interpretation of contracts under UK law, and provides a comparison between the way in which those principles are applied traditionally and the way in which the Law Commission say they could apply to the main types of smart legal contract.

The Practice Note includes the following sections:

  1. •

    What is a smart legal contract?

  2. •

    Distributed ledger technology (DLT)

  3. •

    Enforceability under UK law

  4. •

    The formation of smart legal contracts

  5. •

    Agreement (comprising an offer and acceptance)

  6. •

    Consideration

  7. •

    Certainty and completeness

  8. •

    Intention to create legal relations

  9. •

    Formality requirements—‘in writing’

  10. •

    Formality requirements—‘signature’

  11. •

    Can a smart legal contract be a deed?

  12. •

    The interpretation of smart legal contracts

  13. •

    Remedies

Benjamin Mendelson
Benjamin Mendelson

Associate, Founders Law

Ben qualified in South Africa before joining Linklaters’ Legal Operations in London to help manage the firm’s Paralegal and Support Lawyer services.
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Ben has a background in commercial law, with many years of experience consulting in the tech sector, advising private clients on a wide range of Fintech–related matters and opportunities, including on Blockchain technology and Cryptocurrencies.
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In 2021, Ben joined the team at Founders Law to fully-realise his passion for Fintech and to provide legal advice to some of the biggest up-and-coming technology companies in the UK’s booming tech sector.

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Related legal acts:
Key definition:
Smart legal contracts definition
What does Smart legal contracts mean?

Smart contracts are computer programs that run automatically without the need for human intervention. The code of a smart contract is fully automated; designed to self-execute on the parties’ request, or on the satisfaction of pre-determined conditions. Examples of use cases include performing transactions on decentralised cryptocurrency exchanges, facilitating games and the exchange of collectibles between participants on a distributed ledger, and running online gambling programs.

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