Andre#
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May 19, 2016, 08:13:51 PM

Great piece on some of the legal issues related to the DAO.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-17/blockchain-company-wants-to-reinvent-companies

I particularly like this:

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But what if an impecunious owner of a Mobotiqmobile rents it to her impecunious peer, and it autonomously crashes into a bus full of children? What if they sue? What if Mobotiq, and the owner and the renter, don't have enough money to pay their damages? (Presumably the car has no money.) What if the insurance that Mobotiq is required to buy under the smart contract turns out to be worthless because someone filled out a form wrong? What if the only deep pockets anywhere near the accident are those of the DAO itself? What if the DAO has spent all its money on a pyramid scheme, and the only deep pockets are those of the DAO's individual investors?

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At that point, the DAO might want to know what its relationship is with Mobotiq, not in terms of "immutable, unstoppable, and irrefutable computer code," but in terms of traditional corporate structures under relevant local law. Is Mobotiq a division of the DAO, identical with the DAO for liability purposes? Is it a separate corporation in which the DAO has a (limited liability) equity investment? The DAO's investors, similarly, might now be keenly interested in whether they are in fact general partners in the DAO under local law. Because general partners tend to have unlimited liability for their partnership's misdeeds. Even if the smart contract says otherwise. Without the protections of limited liability based in local law, all you have to rely on is cryptography.

I also think the potential legal liability of the "curators" is going to be interesting.

Thanks! That's a great read.