Announcing one of the conference speakers, Bristol 2021 – Professor Sarah Green

As we count down to ITFA 2021 we are pleased to announce Professor Sarah Green of the Law Commission of England and Wales as speaker. She will be presenting the session ”Back to the Future: the new-old life of the Bill of Exchange and Promissory Note.” This session will take place on Thursday 7th October at 9am. Professor Green and the Law Commission are in the process of examining how English law needs to change to accommodate digital assets such as bills of lading and negotiable instruments to bring the law up to date with the technology. If the legislation recommended by them is passed by Parliament, this will represent one of the biggest changes and opportunities in trade finance digitisation this century.

The legal function of paper documents depends to a significant extent on their having a tangible form, so that they can be held and possessed. In a pre-digital world in which documents always had such a form, this position was unremarkable and unproblematic. Now that documents often exist in electronic form, however, that position makes a lot less sense, and gives rise to interesting and important questions about what it means to hold or possess a document. The legal response to these questions will define the next era of commercial technological development.

We are excited to host you all in Bristol between the 6-8 October for what is set to be a great event. Please click here to register before 23rd August in order to benefit from the Early Bird rates and to ensure accommodation at the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel. The conference programme is continuously being updated – click here to view the programme. 

Professor Green was appointed as Law Commissioner for Commercial and Common law in January 2020. She was previously Professor of Private Law at the University of Bristol.  Prior to that, she was Professor of the Law of Obligations at the University of Oxford, having been a lecturer at the University of Birmingham from 2001 – 2010. Before embarking on her academic career, she was a software consultant at Accenture. Professor Green has written books and articles on a variety of issues including virtual currencies, blockchain issues surrounding intermediated securities, smart contracts, sale of goods law as applicable to digitised assets, negligence and wage theft.

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