Meeting with the Law Commission of England and Wales

On April 30^th, the Law Commission of England and Wales released a consultation paper on proposals to allow for legal recognition of electronic trade documents such as bills of lading and bills of exchange.

Join us on May 28^th for an expert session with Sarah Green, Commissioner for Commercial and Common Law at the Law Commission of England and Wales to discover those proposals and to share your feedback.

“Our consultation paper sets out our provisional proposals for law reform to allow for electronic trade documents to be ‘possessed’ and can have the same legal effects as their paper counterparts.”, explains Sarah Green. “Accompanying the consultation paper is a draft Bill which would implement those proposals.”

During that session, we will also explain how public DLT is being rolled out by predominant industry initiatives – such as ITFA’s DNI Initiative – to facilitate the digitisation of negotiable instruments in an interoperable way. “DLT offers the prospect of creating viable electronic documents for use in shipping, trade, and trade finance that mimic the salient properties of their paper counterparts.”, states the UK Law Commission in its consultation paper. “These electronic documents can be transferred between participants on the ledger without the need for a central authority, and the record of these transactions is for all practical purposes permanent.”

Join us on May 28^th at 10:00 BST / 11:00 CEST for learning more about the future of digital negotiable instruments under UK Common Law. This educational session is open to all ITFA members. Just sign up via email to alexiavella@itfa.org. In the meantime, we invite you to find out how technology including public DLT will help the UK achieve its ambition to boost SMEs’ overseas trade thanks to digital negotiable instruments.