Here’s one for all the legal blockchain and smart contract fans out there – in what is a major coup, global law firm Clyde & Co has today announced that it will be providing legal services to new global banking and energy blockchain platform, Komgo SA.
Komgo is a ground-breaking consortium of leading banks, trading houses and energy companies that will ‘digitalise trade and commodity finance processes through a blockchain-based open platform’.
The consortium members are a who’s who of major European and global players: ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas, Citi, Crédit Agricole Group, Gunvor, ING, Koch Supply & Trading, Macquarie, Mercuria, MUFG Bank, Natixis, Rabobank, Shell, SGS and Societe Generale, (as pictured above).
Clyde & Co will provide legal support to Komgo through its smart contracts, and blockchain consultancy Clyde Code (see Artificial Lawyer feature here) – which is an extremely nice piece of work to have if you want to be at the cutting edge of this tech and working with major clients who take blockchain very seriously. So, well done to Clyde Code!
Led by partners Ian Chung and Patrick Murphy, the team will assist in the setup of this first of its kind venture and provide ongoing support.
Murphy, of Clyde & Co, said: ‘Komgo has the potential to transform the way trade and commodities financing takes place and is a tangible example of how blockchain technology can reimagine and refashion old and inefficient processes. We look forward to supporting them with legal advice and services as they establish themselves and grow.’
The blockchain platform will be developed in partnership with Switzerland-based ConsenSys. It will first be used for energy and be followed by agriculture and metals next year.
The first application will standardise and facilitate KYC process without using a central database: the exchange of documents will be executed in an encrypted way over the blockchain on a need to know basis.
The second product will be digital letters of credit, allowing commodity houses or other platforms to submit digital trade data and documents to Komgo SA customer banks of their choice.
Due to a strong overlap of shareholders between Komgo SA and VAKT, which is blockchain-based post-trade processing platform for commodities, the two companies will explore synergies between both platforms moving forward.
Komgo SA has been incorporated in Geneva, one of the main worldwide commodity-based clusters, and benefits from the strong support of the Canton de Genève.