See You in Court, Anon: UK Judge Allows Lawsuits via NFT Airdrop

Do not know who stole your crypto? If you are in the UK, you can now sue them through one blockchain.

A British court last month granted Giambrone & Partners LLP permission to prosecute an anonymous person via an NFT airdrop sent to the individual crypto walletthe company reported Tuesday. Fabrizio D’Aloia, represented by Giambrone, is suing an unknown person–as well as the crypto exchanges Binance, Poloniex, gate.io, OKA and Bitkub – over a loss of cryptocurrencies.

NFTs are unique tokens found on blockchain networks such as Ethereum or Solana and means ownership of a digital object, which can be anything from an image to virtual land or, now, legal papers.

According to the law firm, D’Aloia is trying to get the crypto lost back to him.

“Mr D’Aloia’s cryptocurrency is being misused by People Unknown who runs a fake clone online brokerage, which encourages investors to put cryptocurrency in two wallets so that” trades “can be placed with it,” the company wrote.

Giambrone Associate Joanna Bailey sees exchanges as part of the problem. The law firm is now serving legal papers demanding that the allegedly stolen crypto be returned.

“Should cryptocurrency exchanges act in violation of such orders and fail to delineate the identifiable cryptocurrency, they risk being held liable for breach of trust,” Bailey said of the lawsuit. The employee did not respond Decrypthis request for further comment.

The law firm also claimed that regulators and legislators do not do enough to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges and “fail to exercise control”.

In its statement, the firm applauded the UK Government’s move to allow legal proceedings to start via NFTs, in part because it believes it is a move towards “greater consumer protection and responsible practice.”

That said, it is currently unclear how enforceable legal documents served via an NFT will be. Preston Byrne, attorney and partner at Anderson Kill, told Decrypt via email as such a practice is likely “limited practical effect.”

“It is an interesting type of alternative service, and in line with the UK’s tradition of alternative service via platforms such as Twitter, albeit one that has limited practical effect if a user has been careful with [operational security] or decide to never shop with that wallet again.”

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