You are a little behind the times on the status of digital signatures, smart contracts etc.

Our project The Law Commission was asked by the Lord Chancellor to include work on smart legal contracts as part of our Thirteenth Programme of Law Reform. In November 2019, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (“UKJT”) published its legal statement on cryptoassets and smart contracts. The UKJT Legal Statement concluded that, in principle, smart contracts are capable of giving rise to binding legal obligations, enforceable in accordance with their terms.

Following this, the Ministry of Justice asked us to undertake a detailed analysis of the current law as it applies to smart legal contracts, highlighting any uncertainties or gaps, and identifying such further work as may be required now or in the future.

Advice to Government We published our advice to Government on smart legal contracts on 25 November 2021. It was informed by the detailed responses we received to the call for evidence, published in December 2020.

We have concluded that the current legal framework in England and Wales is clearly able to facilitate and support the use of smart legal contracts, without the need for statutory law reform.