DIFC Courts Propose On-Chain Dispute Standard as DFSA Publishes Tokenisation Report

The proposals address a practical problem for banks and asset managers considering tokenised products in the Gulf: who rules on a disputed smart contract, and how that ruling is enforced on a network built so that transactions cannot be reversed. The DIFC already hosts more than 600 wealth and asset management firms, and its regulator is trying to set the terms for how they move onto blockchain-based infrastructure.

The courts' white paper, written with the consultancy DECA4 and industry partners, describes an optional mechanism called the Dispute Resolution Oracle. Parties would link a smart contract to a court or other recognised dispute forum before carrying out a transaction. If a dispute arose, the disputed assets could be temporarily frozen while the case was reviewed, a reasoned decision issued with rights of appeal, and the final ruling carried out directly on the blockchain, according to the state news agency WAM.

The paper says the standard would be open to any jurisdiction rather than tied to Dubai. People would still make the decisions: judges, arbitrators, mediators and experts would continue to rule under existing legal frameworks, with the oracle connecting their rulings to the chain.

The Dubai Financial Services Authority's report, titled Scaling Tokenisation: The Road Ahead, gathers views from financial and technology firms including BlackRock, Ripple, Robinhood and Standard Chartered. It examines the regulatory, operational and legal conditions needed for tokenisation to be used in financial products, payments and market infrastructure.

Mark Steward, the DFSA's chief executive, said the move from trials to live use raises important questions about how these markets can grow responsibly. According to WAM, he said the report does not prescribe a single technical or regulatory path. Instead it sets out where market participants agree and disagree, to encourage discussion among institutions, investors, regulators and policymakers.

A Programme for Family Business Heirs

At the Dubai Family Wealth Summit the same day, the DIFC announced a NextGen Internship programme for 2027. It will place younger members of business-owning families with firms in the centre, working in financial services, auditing, consultancy, law, artificial intelligence, fintech and innovation. The programme builds on the inaugural NextGen leadership programme the DIFC ran this year. The centre tied it to estimates that about $18.3 trillion in family wealth will pass between generations globally by 2030.

Speakers at the summit included Hussain Sajwani, chairman of Damac Group; Halima Dangote of Dangote Industries; Maurice Gravier, group chief investment officer for wealth management at Emirates NBD; Shehab Gargash, founder of Gargash Prime; and Osama Ibrahim Seddiqi, vice chairman of Seddiqi Holding. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Trade, gave a keynote address.

The tokenisation forum was attended by officials including the UAE Central Bank's head of fintech and representatives of Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, regulators from Guernsey and Greece, and a Nigerian senator who chairs his chamber's capital markets committee. The reports did not say when the dispute standard might be used in practice or which platforms would adopt it first.