KHAI KWAN LAWYERS

Working on a series of agreements to accommodate Art 6 of Paris Agreement so that carbon credits created (1) are endorsed by the governments. This is perhaps the most important issue given that in the last 14 years most were under the radar and local governments were not involved. The biggest take was when Indonesia took a stand by making an order that all projects in Indonesia will need to seek approval (https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/041422-indonesia-halts-carbon-project-verification-process-over-legal-concerns). The implications will be felt by current external proponents verifiers such as GoldStandard and Verra also served as a trusted registry for those volunteer carbon credits (bulk of all carbon credits). I envisaged that local governments would want to have their own process to be taken first similar to the process in Australia where they have https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/

Under Article 6, a host government has the right to decide whether mitigation outcomes achieved within its jurisdiction are authorised for use towards (i) an NDC ( Nationally Determined Contributions) of another country, and/or (ii) ‘international mitigation purposes’, which is generally understood to include use by an airline operator to comply with CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation), the international aviation sector’s offsetting regime.

So why fixed a unbroken process ? Traditional national governments have a role under the CDM process and after that is finished the process is now formalized in this Art 6. It is not a big surprise except for the fact that whenever regulation comes in the process will be costly, less efficient and eventually died a natural death. This can be seen by the popularity of the voluntary carbon market vs the CDM issuances. This is notwithstanding the expenses involved with the voluntary carbon market (say in GoldStandard which is the benchmark averaging close to 40K for registering (https://globalgoals.goldstandard.org/fees/) but excluding the costs of external Verifier (https://globalgoals.goldstandard.org/verification-validation-bodies/).

It is no secret that this cost shows the average costs of carbon sold on their markets is double digits while actually paid to the landowners or “guardians” is in single digits. Say

https://market.southpole.com/

https://marketplace.goldstandard.org/

Be that as it may, Art 6 perhaps will be able to assist. The pricing of carbon credits is perhaps the most difficult given different players, projects, and consistency even between themselves. This makes it very difficult for parties to distinguish other than by looking at a project that appeals to them rather than the scientific backing behind the technology to capture or avoid carbon emissions. A simple example, mangroves can take TEN times more carbon as compared to a real forest for the same area. This is because mangroves have a lot of utilities as it sits in the divide between the sea and river, most don’t even know it has a filter usage and mitigates flood. Most see mangroves as a development potential for beach-frontage.  On the other hand, some see forests through a romantic lens and therefore prefer such projects and would be willing to pay more for such carbons (this is also because it is less as it is TEN times less as compared to mangroves). Art 6 will allow the authorities to price what is basically unpriceable.

There is a good paper about Art 6 so please have a read (30+ pages) https://www.goldstandard.org/sites/default/files/documents/carbon_credit_rights_under_the_paris_agreement_november_2022.pdf

The paper above also alluded to the English law position on Carbon Credits in the case of Armstrong v Winnington [2012] EWHC 10, [2013] Ch 156

see https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/10.html

Recently got jobs to do due diligence ESG on two industry telco and banks. Interestingly they score above average. To begin this is what I did (first to find out about how the data is collected)

Most start with S&P reports (https://github.com/monouns/ESG-AI-investment-by-streamlit) without realizing how those reports are generated (ie by survey input from the companies themselves and if there is no report returned to S&P, S&P will ‘input’ for the absent company to the best of their knowledge). In short, at best these are non-verifiable self-reports.

Some of the studies merely extract data from reports without doing any verification (see https://github.com/edgetrader/esg-nlp or https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-esg-evaluation-handson/tree/main/notebooks). Similarly even databrick has its own version of extracting data from self-reports to understand ESG https://github.com/databricks-industry-solutions/esg-scoring

This one provides a scrapping tool and dump data into a file for further analysis. I included this as it is normally a good starting point https://github.com/shweta-29/Companies_ESG_Scraper
The general formula in this extraction is to look for keywords such as policy and performance in the reports in the belief that having a policy or performance metrics somehow equate to accountability and therefore some measurable governance. The last step is usually to apply the result against financial ratios to sustain the relationship between ESG and Financial. See for example https://developers.refinitiv.com/en/article-catalog/article/esg-disclosures

Lastly we have an example of integrating into a portfolio by applying the resultant data (in this case extracted from Bloomberg) https://github.com/LucS12/ESG-Score-Integration or this one https://conscious-investing.herokuapp.com/ (using 2019 data).

Stay tune to the next step …..

Banks – the issue is not so much environment (other than their lending activities) the main issue is banks are subject to the “Social” side and “Governance” side of ESG. This following should give you an idea of where I am heading  click here to ABC site

This is basically what is wrong with a public service that is financed by its own revenue. The Public Trustee is supposed to help those who needed affordable expertise in arranging their after-death Will so that their beneficiaries will not be burdened. In brief, the deceased used one of those Free will available which means the Public Trustee is named as the Executor instead of the usual nominated party like a trusted family member. What happened next is even bizarre as the Public Trustee decided to contest the Will which was made 6 years ago on the count that the death certificate shows the deceased had dementia. This is despite no one has even raised this issue nor was there any evidence the deceased was not in her full faculties at the time when the Will was made out. In fact, ABC even stated that based on FOI obtained the Public Trustee actually got a mini-mental test done just 3 days prior to making the will from its Solicitor. The Public Trustee charges its services like a law firm at a charge-out rate of $370/hr including telephone calls leaving the beneficiaries with a 20K bill to be reimbursed from the Will. It also has maintenance services fees for giving no services other than maintaining the account with them at $400.

The second story uncovered that the Public Trustee was supposed to look after the inherited funds for an underaged (less than 18). This usually occurs when one died without a Will, the super-funds of the deceased will go to their family and if one of them is less than 18, then the funds will be managed by Public Trustee until 18. The sad part is that instead of getting a professional fund manager or buying a simple index, the shares in the funds were sold at the bottom of the GFC and then remained as cash for the next 14 years. In short, the inheritance was at 70K before GFC and now only 35K after deducting fees and losses in the GFC. Granted Public Trustee is not a fund manager but the prudent way is to have invested them in fixed deposits or govt securities and not in shares and sold at the bottom.

You can click here to watch the video by ABC https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/queensland%E2%80%99s-public-trustee-agency-faces-questions/14000882

We are currently building a will2probabate system. This means from a WILL to getting Probate semi-automatically. I say semi because not all the processes can be automated as it is within the prerogative of the Court. If you wish to support us go to https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8LX9tTeiC4.

Hello been a long time since I posted here. A shout out to a client then who managed to transfer his NFT Patent licenses to his Spatium Wallet. He send me this video to show how it looks on his mobile phone. The reason for the same PIX is because he had divided them into different jurisdictions which is only differentiated by ID number. The unique NFT is found in the ID and in this case each one of them is embedded with a License framed for specific jurisdiction like California and so on. Mike told me he will be minting again on my https://poly.nftpatent.net with different PIX to show different jurisdictions. Once minted they will be offered on https://opensea.io/michaeljuniorspruill

The problem is the implementation, engagement, and enforceability of the various agreements with the farmer to originate carbon credit in Australia.

The solution is to implement all the steps, benchmarks,s and milestones themselves inside the DAO so that members could also benefit from the carbon credit scheme directly. Currently, most of the credits are issued and bought by the regulator and institutions without reaching the broader market. With this DAO structure, the members who participate will be entitled to receive their very own carbon credit.

Hi, I was thinking about why there is no WILLS on the blockchain. I am not suggesting you put your WILL on the blockchain. It may be too risky as it is open and transparent. What I meant is to preserve the latest reference to your WILL by way of an address linked to your WILL document.

Currently working on fractional licensing of patent using NFT. Basically, this means, you have a patent and you want to license it by way of a NFT. But this license is limited to a fixed number of unique NFT allowing the holder/owner of the NFT access to a unique licensing agreement embedded therein, transferable at will, and limited to the net-sales value of X. As I said because this is a fixed number of NFTs, should the licensed product be successful, there will be demand for these NFT driving its value. If it is not successful these NFT’s value goes to zero. The important economic benefit here is that the licensor can offer this NFT easily with set terms that are fair to patentee or licensor and the licensee. The licensee knows exactly the limits of the licensing agreement. I provide services for creating your own NFT and the license attached with this (also posted on IPFS so to ensure immutability) for a fixed price. Note most marketplace (say opensea) providing NFTs (on the Ethereum blockchain with a link to the art on website) provide a generic license (for the copyright of the art) which is not the same or applicable for Patents. I finished the first one which is merely proof of concept on opensea.io

The next stage is to build a platform that is for Patent Licensing, a mock-up is found at nftpatent.net

If you are interested in this journey to complete an online licensing platform that is robust with NFT transferability please contact me. I am on telegram “lawyerkwan”.