UK Court to Allow Serving Legal Documents Via NFTs

Fabrizio D'Aloia, the creator of the Italian online gambling business Microgame, has been given permission by the High Court of England and Wales to bring legal action against unnamed individuals using a non-fungible token (NFT) drop.

Earlier this month, a U.K. court authorized Giambrone & Partners LLP to serve legal proceedings on an anonymous individual through an NFT airdrop sent to the subject's crypto wallet, the firm stated Tuesday. Fabrizio D'Aloia, represented by Giambrone, is suing an unnamed person, as well as the cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, Poloniex, gate.io, OKA, and Bitkub, for a loss of crypto money.

D'Aloia will be able to serve legal documents to individuals who are unknown but linked to two digital wallets. This is essential in the cryptocurrency industry since hacks and frauds are often only connected to wallet addresses.

“This is so important because it shows the court's willingness to adapt to new technologies and embrace the blockchain and actually step in to help consumers where previous legislation and regulators simply could not do that,” Joanna Bailey, an associate lawyer from Giambrone & Partners LLP who worked on the case, said in an interview.

D'Aloia claimed to have been tricked into putting roughly 2.1 million USDT and 230,000 USDC into two wallets that later turned out to be fraudulent by an online brokerage. According to Bailey, the court's decision enables D'Aloia to file a lawsuit against the creators of the fraudulent site by delivering the court documents to the two wallets via an NFT drop.

D'Aloia noted that Binance, Poloniex, Gate.io, OKX, and Bitkub were the places where his cryptocurrency was stored. D'Aloia received a court order last month prohibiting the exchanges from relocating such assets.

The enforceability of legal papers delivered by an NFT is, however, not yet evident. According to Preston Byrne, an attorney, and partner at Anderson Kill, such a technique is probably of "limited practical effect."

“It's an interesting type of alternative service, and in keeping with the UK's tradition of alternative service via platforms like Twitter, albeit one which is of limited practical effect if a user has been fastidious about [operational security] or decides simply to never transact with that wallet again.”

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