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NFTs as property: what next?

13 May 2022
Issue: 7978 / Categories: Features
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Non-fungible tokens have been confirmed as property by the High Court: Racheal Muldoon of 36 Commercial and counsel for the successful applicant hails the ruling & explores its implications for NFTs going forward
  • In March, the High Court recognised for the first time that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) constitute property and are therefore capable of being the subject of an injunction.
  • There are many implications of this landmark ruling, including that it empowers NFT holders to seek recourse from the courts where NFTs have been unlawfully removed, and suggests that NFTs are taxable and can be held on trust etc.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are often ridiculed as valueless digital images of apes, capable of being downloaded by anyone at the click of a mouse. The unprecedented acceleration in the demand for NFTs in 2021, as captured in the recently published The Art Market 2022 Report by Art Basel and UBS, is equally disregarded as a short-lived ‘fad’. But what of these criticisms if NFTs constituted legal property?

On 10 March of this year, Pelling

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NEWS
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
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