Knowledge & Insights

The much awaited decision of Singapore’s first reported virtual currency trial is out: the Singapore International Commercial Court (“SICC”) held that the operator of a currency exchange platform was liable for breach of contract and breach of trust when it reversed trades of certain virtual currencies made at a highly abnormal exchange rate by an electronic market maker (B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd [2019] SGHC(I) 03).

The SICC made two interesting holdings on novel issues:

• Cryptocurrencies, although not legal tender, have fundamental characteristics of intangible property and can be treated as property that may be held on trust; and
• When raising an argument of unilateral mistake to render trading contracts void or voidable where algorithmic trading is involved, an important factor to consider is the state of mind of the programmer of the software at the time of writing the relevant part of the software. This update takes a look at the salient points of the SICC’s decision.

If you would like information and/or assistance on the above or any other area of law, you may wish to contact the partner at WongPartnership that you normally deal with or any of the following partners:

Joy TAN
Joint Head – Commercial & Corporate Disputes Practice
Joint Head – Corporate Governance & Compliance Practice
Joint Head – Financial Services Regulatory Practice
d +65 6416 8138
e joy.tan@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Joy’s CV.

LAM Chung Nian
Head – Intellectual Property, Technology and Media, Telecommunications and Data Protection Practices
d +65 6416 8271
e chungnian.lam@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Chung Nian’s CV.

TIAN Sion Yoong
Partner – Financial Services Regulatory Practice
d +65 6416 2488
e sionyoong.tian@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Sion Yoong’s CV.