UK government seeking to give courts new powers to track down crypto assets
The UK government is drawing up new rules to tackle crypto fraud, with a view to making it easier for courts to trace crypto assets.
Speaking at a legal conference yesterday, Sir Geoffrey Vos, one of Britain’s most senior judges, said a sub-committee of the body that writes the rules for civil courts, is seeking to change the law to make it easier for courts to work on fraud cases involving cryptocurrencies.
New rules being considered include laws that would allow courts to order third parties, such as cryptocurrency exchanges, to disclose documents relating to individuals who have been proven to be involved in fraud cases, according to the Law Society Gazette.
The new rules may also expand the grounds on which proceedings can be served outside of jurisdiction.
“It is that obstacle that has impeded many sets of proceedings aimed at tracing the proceeds of crypto fraud,” Vos said at a legal conference, according to the Law Society Gazette.
“The blockchain is now at a stage in its development equivalent to where the internet was in or around 1995,” Vos, who has held the position of Master of Rolls since January 2021, told the conferece.
“The internet was unstoppable in 1995 and blockchain technology is unstoppable now. It will become ubiquitous in all major industrial and financial sectors, simply because it allows for the immutable recording of data, thereby reducing friction in commercial and consumer transactions and obliterating the scope for dispute as to what has occurred,” Vos added.