Freezing Orders: A Landmark New Judgement On NFTs From UK Courts

Digital ownership of cryptoassets has brought with it an exponential growth in engagement and monetisation. Indeed, the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market exploded in 2021, growing to an estimated $22 billion and attracting the attention of investors, the sports industry, musicians, artists and reputed auction houses, such as Sotheby's, alike. However, the creation, trading, ownership and diverse use of these cryptoassets raises interesting legal questions, not least amongst them the matter of proprietary rights.

There have been several instances in recent years of the High Court taking action to freeze stolen cryptocurrency. However, in an unprecedented judgment from HHJ Pelling QC in the case of Lavinia Deborah Osbourne v (1) Persons Unknown (2) Ozone Networks Inc Trading as Opensea[1], the High Court of England and Wales took an important first step of granting a freezing order over two NFTs, thereby extending this developing jurisdiction to cover this additional class of cryptoassets.