AAA® and Industry Leaders Launch Legal Protocol for Agentic Commerce

An Open Standard for Trust, Consent, and Recourse in AI-Agent Transactions

With Gartner projecting $15 trillion in B2B spend intermediated by AI agents by 2028, the American Arbitration Association^® and founding industry leaders introduce the missing legal layer for transactions between AI agents.

NEW YORK, June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Arbitration Association (AAA), together with Integra Ledger, and a coalition of industry leaders, today launched the Legal Context Protocol (LCP), a new open standard that makes legal terms, consent, and dispute resolution discoverable and verifiable when AI agents transact on behalf of people and organizations.

Joining the AAA and Integra Ledger as founding contributors are Google, IBM, Circle, Wayfair, Stellar Development Foundation, Ava Labs Inc., UiPath, Cardano, Hedera, Crossmint, Pinata, Aptos Foundation, Baselayer, Trinsic, First Person Cooperative, Sei Labs, and Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui.

Why Now

AI agents are negotiating services, executing procurement, and settling payments autonomously. Gartner projects that by 2028, 90% of B2B purchases will be intermediated by AI agents, channeling more than $15 trillion through automated exchanges. The legal layer has not kept pace. Today, when two agents complete a transaction, the agreement typically lacks verifiable terms, a clear legal jurisdiction, and an identified path to recourse. LCP closes that gap.

"Payment infrastructure is actively being built for AI agents. The legal layer — what was agreed, under what terms, and how disputes will be resolved — is not," said David Fisher, CEO of Integra Ledger, primary technology steward of LCP. "LCP provides the essential legal layer, built as an open standard that can be added to all payment rails and protocols."

"The American Arbitration Association has helped commercial parties resolve disputes for a century," said Bridget M. McCormack, president and CEO of the AAA. "The agentic economy needs that same capacity delivered at machine speed, with clear jurisdictional authority and agreement about recourse. That is what LCP makes possible."

Completing the Stack for Agentic Commerce

LCP is designed to complement the protocols and frameworks already emerging across the agentic ecosystem. Together with payment protocols including x402, the Machine Payments Protocol, and the Trusted Agent Protocol, and agent-coordination frameworks including A2A and Verifiable Intent, LCP completes the stack: payment protocols answer what was paid; identity and coordination frameworks answer who acted; LCP answers under what terms, governed by what law, and with what recourse.

Any organization with a web server can adopt LCP. The protocol requires no specific infrastructure, no intermediaries, and no blockchain. LCP is published under the Apache 2.0 license. Governance is designed to transition to a neutral foundation.

Availability

The specification, reference implementation, and integration examples are available today at www.legalcontextprotocol.org and at github.com/legal-context-protocol. An accompanying article introducing the Legal Context Protocol is available on adr.org.

Organizations interested in joining the founding coalition, particularly commerce and payment protocol developers, cloud and platform providers, blockchain protocols, identity providers, financial institutions, and enterprise legal and compliance teams, are invited to participate.

Contributing Organization Perspectives

Founding contributors share their support for LCP as a new open standard for agentic commerce:

Circle: "As AI agents play a larger role in the global economy and payment rails become even faster, trusted legal infrastructure becomes even more essential. The Legal Context Protocol is a meaningful step toward that foundation, and Circle is excited to be a part of this effort." — Heath Tarbert, president, Circle

Wayfair: "Wayfair is proud to support the Legal Context Protocol. As a business that processes millions of transactions that depend on enforceable terms, we believe agent-driven transactions will require the same foundation. LCP provides an open standard for making that possible." — Enrique Colbert, general counsel, Wayfair

Stellar Development Foundation: "Real-world finance runs on the certainty that obligations are enforceable and disputes have a forum. As agents begin to move money at scale, that certainty cannot be bolted on after the fact — it has to be captured from inception. The Legal Context Protocol does exactly that, as an open standard rather than a proprietary system. That's not a technical detail — it's the foundation agentic commerce needs to earn institutional trust." — Candace Kelly, chief legal and policy officer, Stellar Development Foundation

Ava Labs, Inc: "Helping the law keep up with AI is a big task. This effort is an important contribution and shows that blockchain yet again is a critical technology, especially chains like Avalanche, which is built for business. Now, it's time to train my agents!" — Lee Schneider, general counsel, Ava Labs, Inc.

UiPath: "As agentic transactions are becoming more prevalent, enterprises will need provable records that their agents operated within legal bounds. UiPath supports the Legal Context Protocol as an open and vendor-neutral standard that brings enforceable legal infrastructure to agentic commerce, and we look forward to exploring its application in regulated industries like financial services." — Geanina Moraru, global VP, legal, UiPath

Cardano: "In an era where AI is scaling rapidly, market integrity demands more than efficient payment rails. While public digital infrastructure can provide verifiable identity and transparent execution, the legal certainty of actions by AI agents remains unsolved. Cardano supports the Legal Context Protocol as an essential legal layer to the Digital Trust Infrastructure challenge. Together, we are ensuring that the next generation of digital trade is anchored in accountability and enforceability." — Nicolas Jacquemart, Chief Legal Officer, Cardano Foundation

Hedera: "As AI agents start making decisions and transacting on our behalf, we need to know there's a clear answer to 'what happens if something goes wrong.' LCP gives agentic commerce that missing layer of trust: simple to adopt, with no new infrastructure required. Hedera is proud to be a founding member of this open standard that puts trust and accountability at the center of this next wave of commerce." — Mance Harmon, co-founder, Hedera

Crossmint: "Crossmint gives AI agents access to any payment rail and checkout they need. LCP adds the verifiable terms and clear recourse those payments still lack, as an open standard that works across protocols. Crossmint is participating in the launch." — Alfonso Gómez-Jordana, co-founder, Crossmint

Pinata: "As AI agents begin to participate in more transactions on behalf of users and organizations, the need for transparent and verifiable legal context becomes critical. Pinata is proud to be part of an initiative that uses IPFS to make legal terms easier to preserve, reference, and verify over time. We see this as a natural extension of the role content addressing can play in creating a more trustworthy internet." — Kyle Tut, CEO, Pinata, the data verification platform for blockchain applications

Aptos Foundation: "As AI agents begin participating in economic activity, whether that's executing payments, managing assets, procuring services, or coordinating complex financial workflows, the industry needs more than intelligence and connectivity. It needs trust, accountability, and clear rules of engagement. The next generation of digital commerce will be conducted between autonomous systems acting on behalf of people and institutions

At Aptos, we're focused on building the infrastructure that enables assets, capital, and value to move securely and efficiently in an internet-native economy. Open standards like the Legal Context Protocol are an important step toward ensuring that as autonomous agents transact at scale, there is transparency around consent, obligations, and recourse. Just as the internet required common protocols to connect information, the agentic economy will require common frameworks that allow participants to interact with confidence across jurisdictions, platforms, and ecosystems." — Ash Pampati, head of growth, Aptos Foundation

Baselayer: "Payment rails have moved faster than accountability in agentic commerce, slowing adoption and scaling risk. The Legal Context Protocol is an important step towards unlocking the agentic economy with trusted legal infrastructure and enforceable terms. Baselayer is glad to support the open standard and contribute the verifiable identity layer that ensures accountability." — Nicole Dunn, GM of Agentic Economy, Baselayer

Trinsic: "McCormack and Hoffman's paper names the blind spot the entire agentic commerce industry has been racing past: we've solved payments, identity, and interoperability, but we've stayed silent on what happens when a transaction goes wrong. McCormack and Hoffman are right that the courts won't wait for us to catch up, they'll apply the doctrines they already have. At Trinsic, we believe the answer is to build the missing layer deliberately, with verifiable records of who acted, under what authority, and on whose behalf. This is the foundation that will let agentic commerce scale." — Riley Hughes, co-founder and CEO, Trinsic

First Person Cooperative: "At Trust Over IP (ToIP), a project inside Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust, our #1 principle is that technology alone is insufficient to produce trust. We must bind technical protocols to human governance. This is exactly what the Legal Context Protocol does. It is a single mechanism to ground all agentic interactions in the legal foundations necessary to fulfill universal business requirements. It also aligns perfectly with our work on the ToIP / DIF Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group and the First Person Network, where we can build LCP directly into decentralized digital trust infrastructure." — Drummond Reed, co-chair of the ToIP Steering Committee and Director of the First Person Cooperative

Sei Labs: "Markets that work depend on certainty. Predictability is the foundation of the rule of law and commerce. The financial system has spent a century building that infrastructure for human counterparties; agentic commerce will need the same, delivered at machine speed. As an open standard rather than a proprietary stack, the Legal Context Protocol is the right architectural answer and Sei Labs is proud to support it." — Gerald Gallagher, general counsel, Sei Labs

Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui: "As autonomous systems take on more decision-making and financial activity on behalf of individuals and businesses, the legal frameworks governing those actions must keep pace. Open standards like the LCP ensure that accountability, consent, and dispute resolution are built into the foundation of how those systems operate. Mysten Labs is proud to be a founding contributor to this effort." — Sylvia Favretto, general counsel, Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui

About the American Arbitration Association
The American Arbitration Association is the largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services in the world. Marking its centennial in 2026, the American Arbitration Association has transformed how legal issues are resolved for better since 1926, turning disputes worldwide into opportunities for understanding and progress. A not-for-profit organization, the American Arbitration Association's mission is to deliver ADR services with integrity, transparency, and innovation. For more information, visit www.adr.org/.

About Integra Ledger
Integra Ledger builds the foundational infrastructure that makes AI agents legally meaningful. The company provides open protocols and production middleware that give agents verifiable identity, legal context, and access to real-world dispute resolution. Learn more at www.integraledger.com.

SOURCE American Arbitration Association