1. Who is the whistleblower?

An inspiring article appeared recently in The New Yorker. The title “Bounty Hunter” is not accidental. Author Patrick Radden Keefe presents the story of Jordan A. Thomas, who became famous as an advocate for whistleblowers.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/jordan-thomas-army-of-whistle-blowers

A whistle-blower, also known as a unmasker, is a person who notifies about the occurrence of irregularities, unfair, immoral or illegal practices. The most common place of these irregularities is the whistleblower’s workplace – when he is employed in a given organization, although it is also possible for an external person to report it. By analogy with this distinction, the whistleblower, by making a notification, may direct his actions towards superiors within the organization or directly to any state bodies, and even the media. Internal whistle-blowers are much more likely to be retaliated against by their employers, which manifests itself in, among other things, increasing responsibilities, cutting hours or layoffs. The activities in question also include a bad name that the whistleblower will have to deal with. This may mean looking for a job in a different industry or even changing one’s place of residence. The need to protect whistleblowers underpinned the development of system solutions[1].

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The EU has provided EUR 450 million (USD 503 million) for weapons, including air defence systems, anti-tank weapons, ammunition and other military equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. A further EUR 50 million will be provided for fuel, bulletproof vests, helmets and first aid kits.

Since the EU Treaties do not allow the use of the EU budget for military purposes, the Community is introducing an instrument called the “European Peace Fund”, which allows the provision of military aid of up to EUR 5 billion.

The United States is also increasing its supplies and is providing an additional USD 350 million (EUR 313 million) in military aid, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, small arms and ammunition.

FIGHTING JETS

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As provided by the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), and according to a recent Bloomberg article, more than US$30mn has been raised in BTC, ETH, USDT, DOT, and DOGE. A CryptoPunk NFT, valued at ~US$200,000 was also transferred to Ukraine’s Ethereum wallet. GBBC member has created a dashboard tracking crypto donations.

According to CoinDesk, by 28 February, ~$6.5 million worth of ether had been moved out of a government wallet to a Kyiv-based crypto exchange to help fund the purchase of critical supplies for evacuees, local military personnel, and the government.

The Ukrainian government also announced via Twitter that it will be conducting an airdrop on March 3rd at 6pm Kyiv time to donors that have contributed to its official crypto addresses, this could be the world’s largest crypto airdrop to-date.

Additionally, several DAOs have been set up to raise funds and coordinate aid, including UkraineDAO, members of PleasrDAO, and Trippy Labs. The Ukrainian flag NFT being auctioned by the DAO has been sold to a pool of donors for ~US$6.5mn. Proceeds are expected to support Ukrainians affected by the invasion.

On February 25, Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, announced on Twitter that Ukraine is creating an “IT army” targeting key websites and assets in Russian cyberspace. The “army” is organized under a Telegram chat, where tasks and cyber targets are posted. According to Minister Fedorov all types of digital talents are needed. As of writing, the IT army has more than 275,000 volunteers.

Due to geopolitical conditions and experience in key jurisdictions KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI has the opportunity to use its expertise of cross border legal support for international IT cooperation projects in open source environments that have a real impact of fintech processes, data protection, cyber security as well as crypto and digital assets.

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On 10 March 2022, partners from KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL will participate in the webinar organised by techUK – “Moving registration to the cloud”.

The event will be devoted to the use of technology in public registers conducted by Registrations of Scotland (RoS) – organisation responsible for keeping Scottish public registers of various legal documents. It also preserves people’s rights in land and property. In 2020, RoS has launched its first cloud-hosted register.

The topic of this webinar complies with the specialisation in technology law of KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL and will provide more insight into specifications of cloud-hosted registers, including aspect of data transfers related thereto.

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KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL participated in Alternative Investments Global Virtual Summit organized by SS&C Intralinks, which is a subsidiary of SS&C Technology Holdings – company specialising in providing technology solutions for the financial services industry.

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