Dr. Justine Scerri Herrera

Education and Career

• LL.B, Dip Not.Pub, LL.D, LL.M (Uni Of Groningen)
• Doctorate  (LLD) from the University of Malta
• LL.M Global Criminal Law – University of Groningen The Netherlands.

Biography

Justine started her legal career in the courtroom as a Criminal and Civil Litigator but quickly moved on to work in the corporate world where she gained experience in other sectors, namely the Financial Services and Investment Services sector/Capital Markets.  Justine’s previous employment includes employment with a Top Criminal Law Firm, an International Bank and a Leading Investment Services Firm (Exante). Last April 2019 Justine also received certification for a Capital Markets course she followed at the Malta Stock Exchange (MSE) titled ‘Trading Equities, Bonds and ETFs’ and a course titled ‘Virtual Financial Assets’ by the Malta Institute of Management (MIM) in preparation for obtaining the VFA Agent Licence needed to service crypto related clients.  Justine currently specialises in the Fintech, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies sector at MK Fintech Partners which forms part of the Michael Kyprianou group, which is incidentally Top ranked in The Legal 500 and according to Gold Magazine is the 3rd Largest in size in Cyprus. Justine mainly deals in advising and licensing for issuers and service providers falling under the Maltese Virtual Financial Assets Regulations (crypto & blockchain), Investment Services Act (Capital Market players, Capital Raising etc) and Financial Institutions Act (EMI, PI). 

Her Crypto Story: Justine’s love for the crypto space rose around 5 years ago -While conducting research for her Law Master’s Thesis titled ‘Jurisdiction in Cyberspace’ she came across words such as ‘bitcoin’, ‘the dark web’ and ‘decentralisation’ and immediately became fascinated and driven by a lot of curiosity. Since then she kept herself updated by following what was going on in the industry purely as a hobby. So when around 2 years ago the Maltese Government started publishing consultation papers regulating crypto she could not believe it as she already knew a lot about many aspects of it! Her knowledge and to a certain extent her excitement led her to some fantastic opportunities which resulted in her quitting her job at a bank (ironically) and beginning a whole new chapter in which she is not just a lawyer and advisor but is also a full believer and preacher of the movement. She believes that the world is slowly experiencing a paradigm shift crossing over from traditional players and concepts to Pandora’s box of Fintech, tokenisation, cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Additionally, she has always been and remains to be quite an academic.  Justine’s areas of expertise are mainly in advising and licensing issuers and service providers falling under the Maltese Virtual Financial Assets Regulations (Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain), the Investment Services Act (Capital market players), raising capital, FX, Brokerage, etc, Funds (PIFs, AIFs) and Fintech/Financial Institutions Act (EMI, PIs, etc). Justine has also completed specialised courses with the Malta Stock Exchange titled ‘Securities and Trading’ and ‘Virtual Financial Assets’.