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arXiv · 2509.20421

Formal Verification of Legal Contracts: A Translation-based Approach (Extended Version)

Reiner Hähnle·Cosimo Laneve·Adele Veschetti
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Abstract

Stipula is a domain-specific programming language designed to model legal contracts with enforceable properties, especially those involving asset transfers and obligations. This paper presents a methodology to formally verify the correctness of Stipula contracts through translation into Java code annotated with Java Modeling Language specifications. As a verification backend, the deductive verification tool KeY is used. Both, the translation and the verification of partial and total correctness for a large subset of Stipula contracts, those with disjoint cycles, is fully automatic. Our work demonstrates that a general-purpose deductive verification tool can be used successfully in a translation approach.

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Reiner Hähnle, Cosimo Laneve, Adele Veschetti. 2025-09-24. Formal Verification of Legal Contracts: A Translation-based Approach (Extended Version). https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20421

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