The Australian National Blockchain will help create a new technology platform to securely and transparently manage legal agreements.
Herbert Smith Freehills, CSIRO’s Data61, and IBM have formed a consortium to build Australia’s first cross-industry, large-scale, digital platform to enable Australian businesses to collaborate using the IBM Blockchain Platform and blockchain-based smart legal contracts.
Known as the Australian National Blockchain (ANB), the new platform will represent a significant new piece of infrastructure in Australia’s digital economy, enabling companies nationwide to join the network to use digitised contracts, exchange data and confirm the authenticity and status of legal contracts.
Once completed, the ANB will enable organisations to digitally manage the lifecycle of a contract, not just from negotiation to signing, but also continuing over the term of the agreement, with transparency and permissioned-based access among parties in the network. The service will provide organisations of all sizes the ability to use blockchain-based smart contracts to trigger business processes and events.
ANB will provide smart legal contracts (SLC) that contain smart clauses with the ability to record external data sources such as Internet of Things (IoT) device data, enabling these clauses to self-execute if specified contract conditions are met. Continue reading