Dr Emil Verheul receives NWO-XS grant to study ownership of digital assets

Emil Verheul, associate professor of property law at the Faculty of Law, recently received a grant from the NWO SGW Open Competitie XS program. Verheul received the grant for his research on ownership of digital assets, titled 'Ownership of digital assets - how future-proof is Dutch property law?'

Owning only physical objects

Digital assets are playing an increasing role in the economy and society. The patrimony of both private individuals and businesses is no longer composed solely of tangible objects; it increasingly includes digital assets as well. Examples include e-books, data files, domain names, cryptocurrencies and other non-fungible tokens.

However, Dutch property law is not yet equipped to accommodate this development. At the moment, ownership is only possible with regard to physical objects. This implies that the property law status of digital assets remains completely unregulated.

Develop legal framework for ownership of digital objects

The goal of Verheul's project is to develop a legal framework on ownership of digital assets. In doing so, he explicitly seeks inspiration from other legal systems, in particular German law and US-American law and existing model legislation. The project will start in February 2025 and will continue for one year.

NWO SGW Open Competitie XS program

The NWO SGW Open Competitie XS program selects proposals for curiosity-driven, fundamental research in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). The grant consists of €50,000.

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This article was published by the Faculty of Law.