The Council for Sports Ecosystem Promotion (location: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; head of the secretariat: Hironori Inagaki, Nishimura & Asahi Foreign Law Joint Enterprise) publicly released guidelines for the safety and security of NFT services today.

These guidelines were formulated in light of the fact that the Council publicly released the Guidelines for Joint Establishment of Package Sales and a Secondary Distribution Market for NFTs that Utilize Sports Content (hereinafter referred to as the “C-SEP Guidelines”) on September 20, 2022, on the premise of the content of Item 6 “Ways of thinking about consideration of consumer protection” of the C-SEP Guidelines, for the purpose of specifying that content from the perspective of consumer protection and thereby providing services that consumers can safely and securely use when the Council’s affiliated business operators (hereinafter referred to as the “Affiliated Business Operators”) plan, develop, operate, and manage services that combine NFT package sales (a form in which multiple NFTs are randomly combined and sold in a situation in which their content is unknown) and the provision of a secondary distribution market (a market operated and managed by a business operator that conducts package sales) in accordance with the C-SEP Guidelines.

For formulation of these guidelines, the Consumer Protection Team that was established within the Council conducted discussions with external experts who were knowledgeable about consumer problems (including members of the Internet Consumer Transaction Liaison Committee) and the Commercial Service Group Sports Industry Office of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and conducted exchanges of opinions individually with related ministries, industrial organization related to blockchains, and game industry organizations.

These guidelines will be applied when the Affiliated Business Operators conduct package sales of NFTs to consumers on a primary distribution market for the services similar to the NBA Top Shot to jointly establish NFT package sales and a secondary distribution market that utilizes sports content are subject to the application of the C-SEP Guidelines. We will consider ways to implement consumer protection by the Affiliated Business Operators on the secondary distribution market based on future market expansion and revise these guidelines as necessary. Please keep in mind that, in relation to other types of business, careful consideration and handling based on inquiries made to attorneys and other experts are necessary.

Click here for details about the guidelines for the safety and security of NFT services.

Click here for details about the NFT guidelines (similar to those for the NBA Top Shot).