Smart contracts: concept and applicability

• Grant number: 17/11906-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2017
• End date: April 08, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Private Law
• Principal Investigator: Bernardo Bissoto Queiroz de Moraes
• Grantee: Gustavo Marchi de Souza Mello
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Direito (FD). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present academic research aims at studying, from the legal point of view, the recent figure of the so-called, by the still incipient foreign doctrine, smart contracts. Specifically, at the potential influence it may bring to the contractual legal universe of civil law, insofar as it serves as a response to a social-contemporary interest: the answer which the law gives to the innovations that affect postmodern society. In general terms, shall be studied whether or not this is an innovative legal tool, which, given its recent character and application in the common law field, deserves the proper investigative analysis. The study will be carried out in order to clarify both its legal definition and possible innovations that this contractual figure potentially will bring to the Brazilian legal universe, especially in the field of contractual law. Therefore, it is a research aiming at legally framing such figure, with the scope of enabling a (possible) real application of these self-executing digital contracts in the contractual legal universe of Brazil. At first, the analysis will be based on its modifying potential in the dynamics of this segment, among which it is mentioned, for example, the simplification and the process automation, improvement which are provided by the self-executing mechanism inherent to these contracts. It seeks to understand ways to make feasible new possible legal tools, which in the current academic research are inserted in the logic of the General Theory of Contracts, in line with the growing and widely known processes of innovations that occurs in all segments of modern society. (AU)