Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Electronic signatures under eIDAS: limited immediate change for UK law, cross-border implications, the qualified signatures debate and the move towards smart contracts

Published on: 31 May 2016

Published by a LexisNexis Commercial expert

Legal News

Article summary

Background eIDAS Regulation: Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC

What are the principal changes ushered in by the eIDAS Regulation? In what respects will the current regime be altered? Although signatures are commonly used on commercial paperwork, under English law a document generally need not be signed to have legal force, save for particular classes including:

guarantees
consumer credit agreements
sales of real property, or
wills

When electronic formats such as fax and email emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, the courts in England adopted a notably liberal stance, treating even a telex answerback, generated without human action, as a valid signature. As a result, Directive 1999/93/EC (the 1999 eSignature Directive), which came before the eIDAS framework, produced minimal impact on English law or practice, and the eIDAS Regulation itself is not expected to prompt any significant short‑term shifts. So long as the context in which a document is executed shows that the mark—whether typed, clicked, or pasted—was intended to bind the signatory, it will continue to attract legal effect...

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