Camilleri Preziosi is proud to have supported the first ever ‘Crypto Campus: An Insight into Blockchain Technologies ’, held on Saturday 9th March 2019 and organised jointly by ELSA Malta, ASCS and UESA.
Speaking on behalf of Camilleri Preziosi, Julian Bajada, a junior associate practicing within our corporate & finance team practice groups, delivered a presentation entitled ‘Regulatory Innovation in the EU: a decentralised fix to a centralised problem?’ Julian discussed the prevailing challenges and opportunities in the blockchain and crypto-assets spheres from an EU-law perspective, delving into some of the pressing issues facing the industry and drawing upon lessons learnt from the EU’s experience with traditional financial services legislation. Julian highlighted how the concept of regulatory innovation is moving away from the concept of ‘rules on paper’ to ‘rules in motion’, underlining key initiatives which may transform the way we think of regulatory and supervisory activities in the near future, from the proposal to introduce a Regulatory Sandbox and Innovation Hub, to the idea of investing in Regtech and Suptech solutions with the objective enhancing regulators’ functions through technology-rich solutions that leverage data and data analytics capabilities. Julian also stressed upon the importance of identifying and appropriately addressing new business, market and customer risks, so that the benefits of innovative products and services may be realised, resulting in reduced costs, greater efficiencies, and ultimately wider consumer choice. Finally, Julian took part in the panel discussion and shared his views on the phenomena of security token offering (‘STOs’), debating on what is needed for our capital markets to take on this new dimension. The panel discussion moved on to tackle some of the big questions which are challenging the financial services and legal system as we know it, from decentralisation to automation, granting legal personality to DAOs, together with self-execution via smart contracts and the potential impact of artificial intelligence.
Camilleri Preziosi has supported ELSA Malta throughout the years and regularly participates in academic conferences and events. Camilleri Preziosi would like to congratulate ELSA Malta for a fruitful and well-attended event and looks forward to continued collaboration in the future. For further information on the blockchain and crypto-asset industries, please do not hesitate to contact us on blockchain@camilleripreziosi.com.
