Legal complicance by design: technical solutions for future distributed electronic markets

A novel challenge for Internet-based electronic market platforms constitutes trading of short-lived or non-material goods (e.g., electrical power, bandwidth-on- demand). In such a scenario, distributed market platforms are superior to centralized market platforms in many respects, e.g., because of lower transaction costs, more flexible options for contract negotiations, scalability, and robustness. However, they lack legal certainty since they are not operated by a trusted third party. This paper discuses how the SESAM framework for distributed electronic markets provides legal certainty conforming to European regulations based on three building blocks: First, it models juristic expertise as a formal workflow. Second, it includes a legal advisor consulting the users that are often legal laities. Third, it provides provableness and verifiability. Besides other mechanisms, the last building block comprises a novel solution for adducing the reception of electronic documents in a distributed setting. The real life example of trading energy on an electronic market platform is used to illustrate the interworking of all building blocks.