One\nof the protections in place for certain transactions is a requirement\nfor \u201csigned writing\u201d. This case concerned a contract for sale of\nland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This\nrecent case considers an area where the law really hasn\u2019t caught up\nyet \u2013 email signature blocks. In short, is an automated signature\nadded by your email software enough to amount to a signature for\nlegal purposes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neocleous\n<\/em>says yes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\njudge helpfully considers prior cases on how far an individual has to\ngo to \u201csign\u201d an email. It was previously viewed that a person\nmanually adding their name, or having their typist do so, was\nsufficient to \u201csign\u201d \u2013 being intended to authenticate the\ndocument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nare, unsurprisingly, also statutory issues to consider including the\nElectronic Communications Act 2000 (which gives effect to the\nE-Signatures Directive) and the Law Commission\u2019s report on this\nissue. That report concludes that adding a typed signature is\nsufficient, as is clicking an \u201cI accept\u201d button on a website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\njudge took the view that \u201csignature\u201d had evolved and included the\nconcept of an automatically added signature in Outlook. Especially as\nfrom the recipient\u2019s perspective it is not possible to ascertain\nwhether such a signature is manually added or automatic,<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nwas held intentional as it was known to the sender that this was\ndone, as emphasised by the fact that his email ended with the signoff\n\u201cMany thanks\u201d and followed by the automatic signature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This may be a surprise to some but commercially it seems to be an increasing occurrence and signed contracts are created regularly in this fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n