Possession, Title, and Ownership in an Age of Intangibles
Date: 28 August 2026 (Friday)
TIme: 1:00 – 2:00 PM
Venue: Rm901, 9/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong
It has been said, by various courts and scholars and of various types of intangibles, that they cannot be “possessed”; that the concept of “title” is of no application to them; and that they cannot be “owned”. This seminar interrogates these concepts, which (with the possible exception of “ownership”) are the concepts in which property law trades on a daily basis. The seminar will offer a holistic account of how these concepts relate to each other within a broader system of property-respecting and transaction-facilitating norms, with an emphasis on the functional role performed by each. The significance of the analysis will then be demonstrated by considering how these concepts might apply to intangible things, including digital assets and cryptoassets.
Speaker:
Timothy Chan (LL.M., Harvard; LL.B., NUS) is a Sheridan Fellow at the National University of Singapore and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School. He works on property theory and private law theory, with a special interest in intangible property and digital assets. He has published in leading journals including the Modern Law Review, the Law Quarterly Review, the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, Legal Studies, and the Singapore Journal of Legal Studies. His research has been cited by the Singapore High Court and by the Law Commission of England and Wales. He is a member of the Singapore Bar and was a disputes practitioner before entering academia.
Moderator: Hui Jing, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
For inquiries, please email at .