Reed Smith lawyers were joined by in-house counsel from six leading crypto exchanges, as well as custodians, market makers and other key industry participants. The event provided a unique forum for practitioners to share insights and develop practical strategies for managing disputes in this rapidly evolving sector.
Deep Dives into Key Risk Areas
The workshop featured four interactive sessions, each built around fictional scenarios inspired by real-world crypto matters on which the Reed Smith team had worked over the past 12 months.
Participants engaged in deep dives into strategies to address:
- Dawn Raid Preparedness - Covering legal obligations during regulatory raids, employee conduct protocols, regulator interactions, and post-raid actions including reputational management.
- Data Leaks - Addressing data breach response, regulatory notification obligations under GDPR and other data protection frameworks, managing user claims, and crisis communications strategies.
- User Liquidation Claims - Examining platform outages during market volatility, contractual duties owed to users, enforceability of terms of service, arbitration strategy, and document retention best practices.
- Asset Recovery Requests - Exploring asset freeze demands, tracing methodologies, cross-border enforcement challenges, and the defence of bona fide purchaser for value.
Expert Speakers
Speakers included 7 Reed Smith lawyers from 5 jurisdictions, as well as in-house lawyers, barristers, and technical experts. The full list of speakers is as follows:
Reed Smith Speakers
- Matthew Townsend, Partner (Hong Kong / London) - Convenor
- Mark Bini, Partner (New York)
- Barbara Li, Partner (Shanghai)
- Oliver Rawkins, Partner (London)
- Andreas Splittgerber, Partner (Munich)
- Jill Wong, Partner (Hong Kong)
- Alston Wai, Associate (Hong Kong)
In-House Counsel Respondents
- Iggy Azad, Senior Director (Coinbase)
- Andrew Dailly, Deputy General Counsel (OKX)
- Anna Gates, Head of Compliance & Legal APAC (Galaxy Digital)
- How Pin Lim, Deputy General Counsel (Coinhako)
- Jamie McNaught, Founder and CEO (Solidi)
- Nathan Simmons, CCO and Head of Legal (VDX)
- Pete Wilkinson, General Counsel (BitMEX)
Industry and Expert Speakers
- Emma Arora, Managing Director (Cognito)
- Chloë Bell, Barrister (3 Verulam Buildings)
- Henry Chambers, Managing Director (Alvarez & Marsal)
- Marlon Pinto, Director of Investigations (AnotherDay)
Hong Kong Law Society Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points were awarded.
For further information about Reed Smith's digital assets disputes practice or to discuss any of the topics covered, please contact Matthew Townsend or your usual Reed Smith contact.
