Following a Tuesday notice from Giambrone & Partners, a UK law firm, a case brought by Fabrizio D’Aloia against Binance Holdings, Poloniex, gate.io, OKX, and Bitkub over allegations that someone was operating a fraudulent clone online brokerage has resulted in a legal precedent offering a digital solution to serving someone.
And on June 24th, the judge handling the case allowed parties to be served by airdropping NFTs into wallets initially held by D’Aloia, then stolen by unnamed persons.
The law firm stated, “This order is a noteworthy development in the area of service of court documents and a welcome example of a court embracing new technology. This judgment paves the way for other victims of crypto asset fraud to pursue persons unknown who have misappropriated their cryptocurrency in situations where they otherwise would not be able to.”
Until now, Civil Procedure Rules in the U.K allowed lawsuits to be served by personal services, mail, fax or even dropped off at a physical address. Using electronic methods to serve someone has always been in situations whereby the parties agreed in advance to the delivery of a court authorizes it for a “good reason.”
Giambrone & Partners said that these methods have included Instagram direct messages, Facebook messages and a contact form on a website.
Demetri Bezaintes, an associate at Giambrone & Partners, commented, “I am confident that this latest judgment using NFT service has the potential to show the way to digital service over the blockchain, with all the benefits of immutability and authentication, becoming the usual practice in the future on legal matters related to the digital world. It is clear that this method of service has a far greater level of success over conventional means of service, such as post, in this sector.”
In addition to the precedent that allows serving individuals via the blockchain, the court said crypto exchanges were responsible for ensuring the stolen assets were not moved or withdrawn.
Our firm was the first law firm in the UK and in Europe to obtain permission by a High Court Judge to serve document proceedings related to a worldwide freezing injunction against unknown persons by NFT using the blockchain technology.
— Giambrone Law (@Giambroneintern) July 12, 2022
Read more: https://t.co/ZOlfwEp8bc pic.twitter.com/PbHK1twkGs
A judge in the United Kingdom has authorized a party in a lawsuit to serve legal documents using nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.
Last month, a law firm in the United States also served a defendant using an NFT in an $8-million hacking case involving Liechtenstein-based cryptocurrency exchange LCX. The NFT was airdropped as a temporary restraining order by the legal team into a hot wallet when the name of the served party was unknown.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
