The development of laws on electronic documents and e-commerce transactions / Alysia Davies.: YM32-2/2008-12E-PDF

"Electronic commerce has had a dramatic impact on the way in which business is done. Increasingly, business communications are being conducted online, as businesses adapt their operations to an electronic environment. In a new business environment where electronic transactions have become the norm, the use of paper to document business transactions is becoming less important. In fact, one of the benefits of conducting business by using digitized information is that it obviates the need to transmit and store paper. Although businesses are adapting to the electronic environment, legal rules continue to stipulate that certain transactions or documents be in writing. Many see such legal requirements as an impediment to transacting business electronically. It is argued that, with a few exceptions, there is little or no benefit in requiring that electronic transactions be put in written form and signed manually. Indeed, it is now widely recognized that legal requirements calling for written documents and manual signatures must somehow accommodate the world of electronic communications. This view has been the driving force behind efforts by international bodies and individual countries to develop rules which would give the same level of legal recognition to electronic transactions as is accorded to paper documents that perform the same function. This paper will review the development of legislation governing the use of electronic alternatives to paper-based forms of communication by the United Nations and in the United States, Australia, the European Union and Canada"--p.1.

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