Andrea Tosato

Professor of Law
Full-time faculty
Andrea Tosato is a leading private law scholar with internationally recognized expertise in the intersection between commercial law and new technologies. In the United States, he serves as the Associate Research Director of the Permanent Editorial Board of the Uniform Commercial Code; he is also the Chair of the Sub-Committee for UCC and Emerging Technologies of the American Bar Association Business Law Section. In the United Kingdom, he has advised the Law Commission of England & Wales on its secured transactions and digital assets initiatives. Internationally, he regularly serves as an expert advisor to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Laws (UNCITRAL) and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT).
At present, Professor Tosato is engaged in several international legislative reform projects dealing with the impact of blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies on commercial law. In the United States, he was a key contributor to the ULC/ALI Uniform Commercial Code and Emerging Technologies Committee that drafted the 2022 Amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code and Article 12. He is also a member of the ULC Committee working on the enactment of these new laws across the United States. At Unidroit, he is a member of the Drafting Committee of Unidroit Working Group on Digital Assets and Private Law and a member of the Unidroit Working Group developing a Model Law on Warehouse Receipts.
Professor Tosato’s research has been published in leading law journals, has received international awards, and has been cited by courts in several jurisdictions. In Europe, his articles have appeared in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, European Law Journal, and Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly. In the United States, his articles have been published in the Pennsylvania Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Arizona State Law Journal, Boston University Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, Indiana Law Journal, and Law & Contemporary Problems.
Notably, his recent paper “The Private Law of Stablecoins” (with Kara Bruce and Christopher Odinet) was awarded the Grant Gilmore Award of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers in recognition of “superior writing in the field of commercial finance law.
Area of expertise
- Commercial Law
- Technology
Education
Law Degree, University of Pavia
LL.M., University of Cambridge
Ph.D., University of Pavia
Articles
Bankrupt Crypto Organizations, 104 North Carolina Law Review (forthcoming 2025) (with Kara J. Bruce and Christopher K. Odinet)
Debt Tokens, University of Pennsylvania Law Review (forthcoming 2025) (with Diane Lourdes Dick and Christopher K. Odinet)
Access to Medicines and Pharmaceutical Patents: Fulfilling the Promise of TRIPS Article 31bis, 91 Fordham Law Reveiw (forthcoming 2025) (with Ezinne Igbokwe)
Floating Liens Over Crypto-in-Commerce, 99 Indiana Law Journal 367 (2023) (with Christopher K. Odinet)
The Intersection of NFTs and Structured Finance, 103 Boston University Law Review 1005 (2023) (with Christopher K. Odinet)
Crypto in Real Estate Finance, 75 Alabama Law Review 93 (2023) (with R. Wilson Freyermuth and Christopher K. Odinet)
The Private Law of Stablecoins, 54 Arizona State Law Journal 1073 (2022) (with Kara J. Bruce and Christopher K. Odinet)
Commercial Law Intersections, 72 Hastings Law Journal (2021) (with Giuliano G. Castellano)
Intellectual Property License Contracts: Reflections on a Prospective UNCITRAL Project, 4 University of Cincinnati Law Review 86 (2018)
Commercial Agency and the Duty to Act in Good Faith, 36 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 661 (2016)
The UNCITRAL Annex on Security Rights in IP: A Work in Progress, 4 Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (2012)
Security Interests Over Intellectual Property, 6 Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (2011)