MAXIM LABS Legal OS for digital jurisdictions
system: live
00 / overview
classification: institutional · build: night-native · est. 2026
trace_07 · status: PASS

Execute
the law.

Maxim Labs builds the computational dispute-resolution layer over sovereign-adjacent digital tribunals: DIFC, ADGM, SICC. Rules-as-code. Reasoned rulings. Enforceable in 170 countries.

Read the protocol → View the corpus → Read the brief → LinkedIn ↗
jurisdictions: DIFC · ADGM · SICC treaty reach: 170 countries licence: MIT + HPSML v1
01 / problem

No tribunal for the digital economy

trace · 2026.q2

Cross-border digital commerce produces $32 trillion in transactions a year. The legal infrastructure underneath it has not moved in fifty years.

trace_01 · smart_contract FAIL

Smart contracts can not judge

Code follows rules. It can not weigh intent or fairness. When a contract behaves badly there is no one to ask why.

verdictunreasonable
trace_02 · national_court SLOW

National courts are too slow

Years of backlog. Cases bounce between jurisdictions. Each tribunal builds its own process from scratch.

latency3–7 years
trace_03 · ad_hoc_panel FRAGILE

One-off arbitration is fragile

Custom panels, custom rules: expensive, slow. They do not add up to a body of law anyone can plan against.

precedentunstable
Cross-border digital commerce keeps growing. The legal infrastructure underneath it has not moved in fifty years. observation_001 · scope: global commerce
02 / pipeline

One lifecycle. Every dispute. On the record.

module_pipeline · v1.4

A small set of building blocks (written once, reused everywhere) so a tribunal moves a dispute from filing to enforcement without reinventing the process each time.

stage_01

Identity

Verified parties file a structured complaint. Legal name, capacity, jurisdiction, counsel of record, captured at intake.

filing verified
stage_02

Evidence

Time-stamped exhibits, sealed and shared with the other side. A dated, attributable, append-only record.

record append-only
stage_03

Decision

A reasoned ruling, readable by humans, checkable by computers. Catala-coded scope, conformance-tested.

reasons verifiable
stage_04

Remedy

Plugged into a real tribunal (DIFC, ADGM, SICC) and a treaty that makes the result stick in 170 countries.

enforcement NY convention
module_01 · rules_as_code

Law a computer can read

Every rule kept in plain prose next to the same rule as runnable code. A judge and a server agree on what it says, built on Catala and OpenFisca, in production for tax and benefits since 2011.

  • in production since2011
  • jurisdictions using it7+
  • statusproven at scale
module_02 · pipeline

One lifecycle, every case

Identity → evidence → decision → remedy. Standardised, predictable, recorded, so the tribunal moves faster and the parties always know where they stand.

  • stage_01 / identityverified
  • stage_02 / evidenceon record
  • stage_03 / decisionreasoned
  • stage_04 / remedyenforceable
module_03 · party_rights

Fairness built in, not bolted on

The basics every party deserves (voice, proof, appeal, privacy) are in the system from day one. Not an afterthought, not a checkbox.

  • voiceright to be heard
  • proofright to see evidence
  • appealright to challenge
  • privacyconfidential by default
module_04 · enforcement

Plugs into real tribunals

Built to work with digital-friendly tribunals already hearing real cases, backed by the global treaty (the New York Convention) that makes their decisions stick.

  • DIFC + ADGM (UAE)live
  • SICC (Singapore)live
  • e-residency (Estonia)live
  • NY convention reach170 countries

A clerk who codes. A tribunal that scales. Every dispute travels the same four stations: filed, recorded, decided, enforced.

module_pipeline · v1.4 · build OK
03 / why now

Three forces. One window.

window: short

For the first time the tribunals exist, the regulation forces it, and the volume demands it. Whoever ships first sets the standard.

/ atlas · digital_tribunals · active 2026 3 nodes online
60°N 30°N EQ 25°E 55°E 85°E 115°E EUROPE ARABIA INDIAN OCEAN EAST ASIA ESTONIA UAE · DIFC + ADGM SINGAPORE · SICC 59.4°N · 24.8°E 25.2°N · 55.3°E 1.3°N · 103.8°E FIG_02 / corridor
DIFC dubai · common law · live
ADGM abu dhabi · english law · live
SICC singapore · int'l comm. · live
E-RESIDENCY estonia · digital · live
today

The tribunals are open

DIFC and ADGM in the UAE, Singapore SICC, Estonia's e-Residency, built for digital commerce, hearing cases now. They need software.

aug 2026

EU AI Act takes full effect

High-risk AI systems must be auditable, explainable, and human-overseen. Black-box decisions will not pass. Rules-as-code is the natural answer.

by 2030

$5T in disputes · no incumbent

Cross-border digital commerce will produce roughly $5 trillion in annual disputes. No vendor owns the dispute layer. Whoever ships first sets the standard.

04 / rubric

Eight invariants. Every fair ruling passes.

scope: per-ruling × tribunal

The rubric we score judgments against. Six per-ruling invariants plus two for the tribunal as a whole. Any judgment that fails any of them is incomplete.

PR · Iper ruling

Identity

quis · who they are

Names you can act on: legal name, capacity, jurisdiction, counsel of record. The hook for verifiable credentials.

"Full legal names, jurisdictions, counsel of record in the order header."
0 absent1 partial2 full
PR · IIper ruling

Evidence log

quid · the record

A dated, attributable, append-only record of submissions, witnesses, and prior orders. Reconstructable from the ruling alone.

"Every submission cited has a date and a filer; prior orders by date and judge."
0 absent1 partial2 full
PR · IIIper ruling

Rule bind

quo iure · by what right

The exact clause of the exact instrument, with version. RDC 38.7 binds; "pursuant to the rules" is partial; bare discretion is absent.

"ADGM Court Procedure Rules 2016, Rule 68(1)(a), cited verbatim, with date."
0 absent1 partial2 full
PR · IVper ruling

Procedure

quo modo · in what manner

The triplet: notice given, both sides heard, decision recorded with reasons. Each leg visible in the order itself.

"Claimant submission dated X; defendant reply dated Y; judgment with reasons issued."
0 absent1 partial2 full
PR · Vper ruling

Ruling

decretum · the order

An operative outcome a computer or a bailiff can act on: amounts, deadlines, interest rates, payee, payer. Spelled out, not deferred.

"Defendant to pay USD 412,000 plus 4% interest by 30 June 2026."
0 absent1 partial2 full
PR · VIper ruling

Enforcement

quis cogat · who compels

A path to actual compulsion beyond the tribunal: the New York Convention, a treaty, a sovereign reach. Without it, the ruling is a wish.

"Award recognised under the New York Convention, enforceable in 170 countries."
0 absent1 partial2 full
SP · Itribunal

Separation

lex et iudex · law and judge

Whoever wrote the rules is not the one applying them. A system property, scored once per tribunal, not per ruling.

"The judge applying RDC is not the body that wrote RDC."
0 absent1 partial2 full
SP · IItribunal

Appeal path

ad maiores · to the higher

Rulings reviewable by a body other than the original decision-maker, under a defined procedure. PTA gates, courts of appeal, supervisory review.

"Permission-to-appeal gate; review by Court of Appeal under set timetable."
0 absent1 partial2 full
05 / proof

A working corpus. Tested against real judgments.

open source · day zero

Not a deck. A working corpus, open-source, replicable, two grader types pinned per-entry. Anyone can pull the repo and reproduce the result.

188 judgments coded
3 tribunals · 3 legal families
7/7 executable traces · all pass
12 catala rule modules
18 api endpoints · py + ts
live dashboard · 7 pages
/ scoreboard Per-tribunal rubric scores · out of 2.0 scope: 188 judgments · n > 30
DIFC
1.72 / 2.0 n = 32
ADGM
1.91 / 2.0 n = 76
SICC
1.85 / 2.0 n = 80
  1. finding_01 Per-tribunal scores on the rubric: DIFC 1.72 (n=32), ADGM 1.91 (n=76), SICC 1.85 (n=80) out of 2.0. ADGM 10× expansion essentially unchanged (1.93 → 1.91); SICC 6× expansion drops 0.10 due to a known PR4 heuristic limitation, reported in full rather than smoothed away.
  2. finding_02 The rubric can fail. A 30-instrument falsification set across five non-court instrument classes (sealed awards, on-chain DAOs, regulator notices, platform adjudicators, UDRP panels) shows the rubric separates real commercial courts from non-court instruments cleanly and does not down-rate a positive control (UDRP), confirming it measures procedural form, not pedigree.
  3. finding_03 Seven executable traces in Catala + Python, across three tribunals. One surfaced a 6 AED clerical error in a published award; another reproduced an ADGM judgment exactly and flagged a one-day daycount convention; another reproduced a USD 456M stablecoin-tracing dispute in DIFC's Digital Economy Court. The "3 of 7 traces flag a discrepancy" claim is now a structured machine-verified record, not narrative prose.
  4. finding_04 Twelve Catala rule modules (16 scopes), each with a pure-Python reference evaluator, a conformance test cross-checking the two, and a version-pinned source.yaml under active drift CI (9/12 modules; 3 doctrines under manual review by design). 1930 property-test invariants. 18-endpoint API plus first-party Python and TypeScript clients.
  5. finding_05 Open source on day zero: MIT (code) + Habeas Protocol Structured-Metadata Licence v1 (data; non-commercial research, takedown-respecting). Source judgments are not redistributed (gitignored on ToS grounds; data/tos_audit.md documents the audit). Governance: CONTRIBUTING / SECURITY / TRADEMARK / TAKEDOWN, plus a published certification spec for the rule library.
View the repo → Open the dashboard → Read the brief →
06 / contact

Build the layer
underneath digital commerce.

We're aiming to be operating in two anchor tribunals by the end of 2026. If you fund or build legal infrastructure, or you run one of the tribunals above, we'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch → Open the dashboard ↗