The Italian Senate incorporated the concepts of “Distributed Ledger” and “Smart Contracts” into the legal framework of that country, through an amendment approved Wednesday, January 23. The legislative action is the first formal mention of these technologies in the Italian legal system, according to local media.
According to the information, the Senate Constitutional Affairs and Public Works Committees approved the amendment of the Simplification Law Decree to incorporate these concepts. This would be the first step in giving legal value to both digital records based on Blockchain and Smart Contracts in Italy.
The objective is to have “the possibility of giving legal value to transaction that uses a distributed and computerized electronic record, without going through notaries or central certification agency,” said attorney Fulvio Sarzana, a member of the team of experts who participated in the process. As for Smart Contract, the standard “gives a contract automatically executed by an IT program the legal value of a normal, written and signed contract,” explained Sarzana
