Addison Cameron-Huff, Blockchain Lawyer

EY recently released a report for the UK government about how its Fintech sector stacks up against other global financial hubs. Toronto was not on the list of comparable jurisdictions. But if it was, it would probably be in fourth place by region.

I'm a technology lawyer and a legal technology entrepreneur. I was recently asked to contribute to a book about how people are leveraging law degrees outside of law. The author has allowed me to publish my thoughts here and hopefully they'll appear in print at a later date. Below are the three technology products I've developed that wouldn't have happened without a combination of J.D. and programming.

Last summer I wrote about why Ontario's bus system is so uncompetitive. That blog post has received a lot of traffic and I've even received a few emails from entrepreneurs wondering how to start a bus company. This summer the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is discussing reform and has put out a discussion paper. The paper contemplates removing legal barriers to entry/reforming the Ontario Highway Transport Board and poses seven questions. My answers are at the end of this blog post.

McKinsey & Company (a prominent consulting firm) has released a report on the application of blockchain technology to the insurance industry.

"The DAO" was an attempt to create a virtual currency investment fund on the Ethereum network. I wrote about it from a legal perspective back in May. In the month following my blog post, The DAO reached over $150 million USD in value and was then hacked.

I am back in the office after a couple weeks in Japan (mainly Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima). Below are a few of the highlights.

Teva Canada Ltd. v. Bank of Montreal, 2016 ONCA 94, contains everything you ever wanted to know about how cheques work and is a case study in financial risk. This is interesting reading for anyone who works with cheque systems or is seeking to replace them (re: Fintech industry). The litigation is focussed on the (federal) Bills of Exchange Act.

The case began with a Teva employee writing cheques to himself for around $5 million. The employee registered Master Business Licenses (MBLs) for names similar to Teva customers (and then a couple imaginary ones).

This blog (and the entire cameronhuff.com domain) now uses SSL courtesy of the Let's Encrypt project.

If you're not using SSL, see if your hosting company offers support for Let's Encrypt (Dreamhost has a great integration). It's free and works just as well as any other SSL cert.

A little while ago I had a Skype consultation with an Italian entrepreneur who had a problem with a German software developer. I asked what the problem had to do with Canada and he said nothing. I asked why he wanted to hire me and he said that he'd done extensive research online and thought that I was the best person for the job.

The potential client had a problem and they wanted someone who knew about contracts, law and software to help them out. They didn't think of their problem as an Italian problem or a Swiss problem.*

Global-Regulation.com (I'm the CTO) has published a list of the top word pairs found in global laws. The Excel file can be downloaded here.

I've looked through the top 500 words and taken note below of some of the more interesting word pairs.

A "Decentralized autonomous organization ('DAO')" white paper has been published by German blockchain company Slock.it UG. This white paper is part of a larger conversation that's been going on for a few years in the Bitcoin/blockchain world. The basic idea is to build a software program that runs like a company, but on a decentralized software platform (e.g. Ethereum). Slock.it's paper is one of the longer contributions to this effort (31 pages, including code examples).

This blog post details a few thoughts on the Slock.it proposal, from a lawyer's point of view.

Canada's equivalent of the NSA, CSEC, is always on the hunt for new talent. There's a job listing today for a "Telecom Technologist & Network Analyst". One of the job requirements: “Experience in administration of remote network endpoints where there is little to no assistance at the remote end.” I wouldn't expect too much help from the other end when you're doing foreign signals intelligence.

The pay for CSEC jobs is surprisingly good for Ottawa civil service but probably not competitive with the private sector right now. Posted salaries for experienced people range from $70k-$100k. Most private sector jobs for similar roles don't have posted salaries but appear to be about $30k/yr higher.

Last week I attended a roundtable put on by CIGI in Toronto titled “Regulating Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities for Canadian Innovation”. Speakers included key people from industry, government and academia. I've distilled my notes about speakers' thoughts and my own reflections into 18 questions. Please note that the roundtable was conducted under a rule of not crediting speakers - the thoughts below are mostly not my own.

1. When we talk about regulation, what are we talking about? (Smart contracts, industry standards, technical standards, regulations, acts, common law, etc.?)
2. What are the benefits of blockchains right now? What will the future benefits be? What might the downsides be?
3. Who should be trusted? Banks? Bitcoin exchanges? Programmers?
4. Do parties that require trust also require government-created rules?
5. Will we still have banks in 30 years? What about other intermediaries?
6. Who will take a cut of future blockchain transactions? Which intermediaries? Government authorities?
7. Will government authorities take a cut of transactions directly? (i.e. X% of each transaction goes to the CRA)
8. Governments have an impulse to regulate. Will new regulations mean giving up the benefits of blockchain or giving up Canada's place in the global market?
9. What are the implications of "programmable trust"? Will we have a future where government functions are transferred to private interactions (i.e. smart contracts) administered through blockchains?
10. What role is there for the (Canadian) government to play as a partner rather than a regulator?
11. Which activities should be governed by criminal law and which by a lighter touch (fines, AMPs, etc.)?
12. Is a lack of a regulation in the blockchain space a "gap" in the law or an opportunity for entrepreneurs?
13. Can regulatory "gaps" be filled with common law and economic behaviour rather than government-prescribed rules? Are there any gaps that cannot be filled by private actors or court-created law?
14. Should blockchain developers be expected to assist government in their traditional roles of law enforcement and taxation?
15. Are the differences between "public" and "private" blockchains important to regulators?
16. What are the jurisdictional challenges to a decentralized global economic system enabled by blockchains?
17. Is there a breaking point in which blockchain benefits (in the form of talented humans making these systems) migrate to less regulated countries?
18. What can be done to ensure that "good" regulations are made by the federal and provincial governments?

The presence of interveners doesn't seem to affect an appellant's chance of success at the Supreme Court of Canada.

I took a look at 844 recent Supreme Court of Canada cases that proceeded to the stage in which there was an appellant (as opposed to applicant). There doesn't seem to be any discernible pattern in the data.

I've analysed 1871 Supreme Court of Canada factums (88902 pages in total) to determine statistical information about factums for appellants, respondents and other parties (i.e. intervenors). This analysis was done using a program.

Appellants & Respondents

I've compiled a list of Toronto-based legaltech startups & established players:

30 Toronto-based Legal Technology Startups

The Canada Business Corporations Act requires that companies hold regular shareholder meetings but the statute allows companies to dispense with the requirement of physical meetings by using written resolutions instead (s. 142(b)).

Written resolutions are a great tool for corporations owned by a single shareholder or a small team of co-founders but it's important to note that all of the required business of a shareholder meeting must be addressed in the written resolutions.

The foot pad on my Macbook Pro Retina fell off the other day. The Apple Store didn't have a replacement part but an eBay seller in Shenzhen, China did. For $3 with free shipping.

The cheapest international shipping option with Canada Post is $5.35 for up to 100g (without tracking). How can a store in China sell me anything for $3, including shipping?

The CEO of BlackBerry blogged last week about how “our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals”. He accused Apple of placing “their [reputation] above the greater good” when the company explained to a court why they can't and shouldn't provide access to encrypted iOS devices.

John Chen would like companies to go beyond the law and do what's “ethical”, citing the responsibility of citizens to “help thwart crime when they can safely do so”.

CanLII's robots.txt file provides preferential access to its database of laws & cases to users of Google vs. other search engines. This blog post explains how they're doing it and why that is inconsistent with CanLII's privileged position in the Canadian legal publishing landscape.

As a preface to this post: I'm a big fan of CanLII's service and use it regularly for my legal practice. Just because something is great doesn't mean it can't be better.