Financial Law and Regulation Seminars:
Security Over Digital Assets: Issues in Private Law

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A fundamental question that arises in relation to taking security over digital assets is whether digital assets are ‘property’ in the first place. This question has been considered by case law in jurisdictions like Singapore and answered definitively in the UK by the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025. In the international context, private law issues relating to digital assets were examined by the UNIDROIT Principles on Digital Assets and Private Law released in 2023. On the basis that digital assets are property, this presentation of a work in progress explores the private law implications for the creation, perfection and enforcement of digital assets as security.

About the Speaker:
Dora Neo is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and was the founding Director of the Faculty’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law. Her research interests include global developments in secured transactions, modernisation of trade finance, consumer protection in the finance industry, and contract law. Her publications include Secured Transactions Law in Asia: Principles, Perspectives and Reform (co-edited with L Gullifer, Hart Publishing, 2021); Trade Finance: Technology, Innovation and Documentary Credits (co-edited with C Hare, Oxford University Press, 2021) and Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia V: Ending and Changing Contracts (co-edited with M Chen-Wishart and S Vogenauer, Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2026). She is a graduate of Oxford University and Harvard Law School and is a non-practicing member of the Bar in England and Wales (Gray’s Inn) and Singapore.

Chair:
Kelvin Low, Director, Centre for Private Law, HKU Faculty of Law