No limited-liability form for informal associations, and no owner for the DAO law follow-up

The Law Commission's DAO scoping paper of July 2024 concluded England and Wales needs no DAO-specific entity and recommended reviewing the Companies Act 2006 and LLP law to accommodate technology-mediated governance. Two years on, no department has commissioned that follow-up. Unwrapped DAOs risk classification as general partnerships with unlimited joint and several liability, so serious UK projects wrap offshore in Cayman foundations or Wyoming DUNAs. The same defect bites at the low-tech end. Unincorporated associations, the form of around 4,000 Covid mutual aid groups, lack legal personality, cannot hold property, and struggle to open bank accounts. A Law Commission project on unincorporated associations from 2008-9 was never implemented.

This is the clearest distance between what technology allows and what UK law supports: software can coordinate thousands of contributors and treasuries while every participant carries unlimited personal liability. Formation, assets and tax residence emigrate. Neighbourhood groups stay legally invisible and unbanked.

DSIT, MoJ and HM Treasury jointly commissioning the recommended Companies Act and LLP reviews, and a limited-liability nonprofit association statute on the model of Wyoming's DUNA, with cheap same-day digital registration usable by street-level groups and on-chain communities alike.

// State-led: Instrument: limited-liability nonprofit association statute; DSIT/MoJ/HM Treasury must commission the recommended reviews.

The sharpest gap between what software enables and what law permits; overseas models exist, nobody owns the follow-up, and no dated trigger forces action.