Equa Blog

Over the years, smart contracts have played a significant role in transforming blockchain technology, enabling a decentralized system. The World Economic Forum, in its 2015 survey recognised that by 2025-2027, about 10% of the global GDP would be stored in blockchains, owing to its efficient attributes of data security management.  By the means of smart contracts, fully automated legal obligations can be enforced without the involvement of third parties. Much like conventional contracts, smart contracts on the blockchain are susceptible to a variety of problems, including non-transactional disputes, off-chain governance issues, and on-chain disputes.  An on-chain dispute resolution system is still in its infancy. It is said that an on-chain smart contract is contained in a self-executing code that automatically executes the terms of the parties’ agreements without the intervention of a third party, leaving little space for human mistakes or disagreement.  Smart contracts, on the other

Blockchain technology is becoming an eventual element which could disrupt every industry around the world. Widely known for its ability to store information in a transparent and immutable ledger, blockchain offers businesses a higher level of precision.  Legal industries are also looking to revolutionize their operations with distributed ledger technology. By storing and validating records of transactions, legal firms will be able to maintain an accurate chain of custody and other legitimate activities on the blockchain. Currently, all lawyers are buried under the mountain of excessive paperwork. Keeping the historical records of the cases is a challenging task for every legal advisor.  However, blockchain has the potential to disrupt the legal industry and there’s a Global Legal Blockchain Consortium which seeks to adopt decentralization in the business of law. BENEFITS OF BLOCKCHAIN Decentralized: Decentralization is one of the key advantages of Blockchain. The blockchain system is f

   A blockchain is a distributed database or ledger that is shared among the nodes of a computer network. As a database, a blockchain stores information electronically in digital format. Blockchains are best known for their crucial role in cryptocurrency systems, such as Bitcoin, for maintaining a secure and decentralized record of transactions. The innovation with a blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party. One key difference between a typical database and a blockchain is how the data is structured. A blockchain collects information together in groups, known as blocks, that hold sets of information. Blocks have certain storage capacities and, when filled, are closed and linked to the previously filled block, forming a chain of data known as the blockchain. All new information that follows that freshly added block is compiled into a newly formed block that will then also be added to the

 One of the terms synonymous with blockchain technology is bitcoin. Before delving into the aspects of cryptocurrencies and bitcoins we must be aware of the multiple applications of blockchain technology in the financial sphere and currency transactions. Finance and trade laws are one of the most heavily regulated areas in India. With the arrival of blockchain technology, the financial sector such as banking and trade has been severely disrupted resulting in the regulatory framework desperately trying to keep up with the exponential evolution of technology. ‘Multiple use cases of blockchain technology are getting explored across industries as everyone has started realizing the disruptive potential of this technology. Financial players are the first movers to capitalize on this technology even though it is still in a nascent stage.’[1] The need for blockchain technology in the ever-flourishing market of financial transactions is twofold: (i) Difficulty to monitor and evaluating asset ow

Blockchain is a distributed ledger system which is a list of records of data and transactions arranged in a block and arranged in a chain, secured by a cryptographic hash function. Every block that forms the blockchain contains a cryptographic hash that acts as a security of the previous block, a timestamp, and the data of the transaction. The blockchain is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way"[1]. Every system connected to the blockchain is a node. The blockchain basically consists of a set of nodes that are connected to each other on a peer-to-peer basis. Any change made to the transaction in any one block gets recorded in all the nodes connected on the chain.  Therefore it becomes impossible for the block to be changed in any manner without it being reflected in the block on all the other nodes. This provides the security of the data on the blockchain as any unauthorized change cannot b

 A blockchain is a chain of blocks that contains information. It can be pictured as a huge accounting book where the records (the blocks) are interlinked and encrypted to protect the security and privacy of what is in the blocks. It is, in other words, a distributed and secured database, open to anyone (in the case of a public blockchain), and that can contain all types of transactions, not only economical ones. To make it simple, each block contains three elements: the data, which depends on the type of block (for a transfer of bitcoins for instance it will be the sender, the receiver, and the number of bitcoins), and the hash, which is a unique fingerprint-like that identifies the block and its content, and the hash of the previous block in order to create the chain.          The interest in a blockchain is twofold. First, the content of each block is validated by the users of the blockchain. To sabotage a blockchain, one would need to have control over 51% of the users of that block

A. INTERIM RELIEF  1. FROM COURT After the judgment of the Supreme Court in Bharat Aluminium and Co. v. Kaiser Aluminium and Co.[1] ("BALCO") the Indian courts had no jurisdiction to intervene in arbitrations that were seated outside India. Post BALCO, if the assets of a party were located in India, and there was a likelihood of the dissipation of the assets, the other party could not approach the Indian courts for interim orders. Since the interim orders made by arbitral tribunals outside India could not be enforced in India, it created major hurdles for parties who had chosen to arbitrate outside India. This anomaly has been addressed in the Amendment Act with the insertion of Section 2(2), which makes the provision for interim relief(s) also applicable in cases where the place of arbitration is outside India, subject to an agreement to the contrary. However, there are a few concerns. This option is only applicable to parties to an "international commercial arbitrati