Donald Trump Charged in Classified Documents Case: A Legal Analysis - WSJ

Donald Trump was charged with 37 counts in the investigation into his handling of classified documents. In his indictment, federal prosecutors lay out how they allege the former president kept national-defense information he knew he wasn’t supposed to have.

Why Central Bank Digital Currencies need a solid legal foundation

Why do Central Bank Digital Currencies need a solid legal foundations? As any form of money, digital currency requires a sound legal basis. The legal treatment of Central Bank Digital Currencies depends on its design features. The distinction between account-based and token-based has significant implications.

 Catalina Margulis, a lawyer from the Legal Department of the IMF explains.

Why central banks want to launch digital currencies

Interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be surging, but central banks don’t want to be left behind by financial innovation. In fact, more than 80% are examining how to launch digital versions of their own currencies. CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche takes a look at why these cautious institutions may soon be launching a revolution in how we think about money.

Heads up: Honolulu’s phone ban

From The Economist

“Distracted walking” becomes illegal in Hawaii’s capital this week, enforced by fines of up to $99. With one of the highest pedestrian-fatality rates in the country, it is the first big American city to prohibit pedestrians from crossing the road while looking at phones or other gadgets. Pedestrian fatalities in America rose 11% last year, to nearly 6,000; mobile phones are blamed for more than 11,000 distracted-walking injuries between 2000 and 2011. Critics of the law worry about government overreach, and say that lowering speed limits, or cracking down on intoxication (of both drivers and pedestrians), would work better. Augsburg in Germany has tried another approach, embedding lights into pavements to catch the attention of downward-looking phone users and let them know when to cross a road. Before signing the bill, Honolulu’s mayor, Kirk Caldwell, lamented the need for such laws, but said: “sometimes we lack common sense”.

Can our technology really be trusted?

A cyber-attacker outsmarts a “smart contract”

From The Economist –

“IS IT theft if no rules are broken? That is what users of the DAO, a futuristic investment fund, were left pondering after June 17th, when an unknown attacker made off with around 3.6m “ether”, an online currency similar to bitcoin. As cyber-heists go, it was a big one: the ether were worth about $55m at the time of the attack, about a third of the DAO’s assets. But the DAO, which stands for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, does not have rules as such, or staff to enforce them: instead, it has computer code, which is supposed to embody its purpose and to operate automatically. If the attacker found a flaw in the code, whose fault is that? Indeed, some cyber-libertarians are arguing that whereas the heist was not a crime, altering digital ledgers to retrieve the lost ether would be an affront to the whole project.”

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Barclays must face U.S. class action over Libor

From Reuters –

“Barclays Plc shareholders who accused the British bank in a lawsuit of inflating its stock price by manipulating the interest rate known as Libor may pursue their case as a class action, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan, whose May 2013 dismissal of the case was overturned by an appeals court, said the claims were similar enough to justify letting the shareholders sue as a group.

She nonetheless said in a 77-page decision that the shareholders face "significant obstacles" to proving damages, including over whether any stock price inflation had dissipated once Barclays started reporting Libor accurately.

Class actions make it easier for plaintiffs to recover larger sums at lower costs than if they sue individually.

Barclays spokesman Marc Hazelton declined to comment.”

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