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How is the UK handling Cryptocurrency and the Law? Part 3: AA v Persons Unknown [2019]
Kirsty Goodary, July 2020
Welcome to Part 3 of our series at Extropy.io.
We hope you enjoyed Parts One and Two, where we gave a comprehensive review on the legal status of cryptocurrency and smart contracts in the UK. You can also find links for Parts One and Two at the end of this article.
The legal issues surrounding cryptoassets are still extremely new. As well as the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce’s (UKJT) “Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts” in November 2019, the Financial Conduct Authority were granted powers to regulate crypto businesses in January 2020.
Another recent development was from common law (English caselaw). Common law can be relied on by Courts in deciding future cases, so we have decided to take a look at a recent case and discuss its findings.
“Cryptocurrency is property”, says the High Court of Justice
On 13th December 2019, in the case of AA v Persons Unknown, the UK Commercial Court in the High Court of Justice granted an interim proprietary injunction over Bitcoin, thereby confirming its status as a property.
