Swiss University ZHAW and Telecoms Firm Swisscom Develop E-Signature for Smart Contracts

The Zurich University of Applied Sciences and major telecoms firm Swisscom have developed an integrated, certified e-signature to legally authenticate blockchain-powered smart contracts.

The news was reported by Swiss financial news outlet Cash today, Jan. 29.

According to the report, a prototype for an Ethereum-based smart contract was created by an interdisciplinary team of lawyers and engineers from ZHAW, together with Swisscom.

Once verified, the e-signature triggers the secure and automated fulfillment of the conditions of the smart contract - whether the transfer of assets or rights, various specified terms or the contract's conclusion.

As Cash further reports, not only Swiss legal frameworks, but also the European Union's eIDAS Regulation require multi-party signatures under contractual law.

Swisscom's Peter Amrhyn has thus noted that the new prototype "Opens up a multitude of international applications."

As reported, legal experts globally continue to debate the relationship between nascent smart contract technology and established legal precedent.

Last week, a professor at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany argued that smart contracts indubitably fall subject to private international law.

She also discussed how differences in protocols and the contract's code can differently determine the nature of this interaction.

This perspective has been shared by other voices globally, who have similarly argued that while smart contracts may complicate legacy frameworks, they nonetheless fall within the scope of existing national and international legal provisions.