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
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.
jurisdictions: DIFC · ADGM · SICC
treaty reach: 170 countries
licence: MIT + HPSML v1
No tribunal for the digital economy
Cross-border digital commerce produces $32 trillion in transactions a year. The legal infrastructure underneath it has not moved in fifty years.
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
One lifecycle. Every dispute. On the record.
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.
stage_02
Evidence
Time-stamped exhibits, sealed and shared with the other side. A dated, attributable, append-only record.
stage_03
Decision
A reasoned ruling — readable by humans, checkable by computers. Catala-coded scope, conformance-tested.
stage_04
Remedy
Plugged into a real tribunal — DIFC, ADGM, SICC — and a treaty that makes the result stick in 170 countries.
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
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
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
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 OKThree forces. One window.
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
DIFC
ADGM
SICC
E-RESIDENCY
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.
Eight invariants. Every fair ruling passes.
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.
Identity
quis · who they areNames 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
Evidence log
quid · the recordA 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
Rule bind
quo iure · by what rightThe 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
Procedure
quo modo · in what mannerThe 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
Ruling
decretum · the orderAn 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
Enforcement
quis cogat · who compelsA 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
Separation
lex et iudex · law and judgeWhoever 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
Appeal path
ad maiores · to the higherRulings 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
A working corpus. Tested against real judgments.
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
DIFC
1.72 / 2.0
n = 32
ADGM
1.91 / 2.0
n = 76
SICC
1.85 / 2.0
n = 80
-
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 drops0.10due to a knownPR4heuristic limitation, reported in full rather than smoothed away. - 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.
- 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.
-
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.yamlunder 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. -
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.mddocuments the audit). Governance:CONTRIBUTING / SECURITY / TRADEMARK / TAKEDOWN, plus a published certification spec for the rule library.
06 / contact
Build the layer
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.