В статье анализируется решение английского суда по делу Neocleous & Anor v Rees | [2019] EWHC 2462 (Ch) в контексте некоторых институтов английского права, как договорного, так и права собственности. Особенное внимание уделяется обязанности подписания договора стороной или от ее имени. В частности, перед судом стоял вопрос о том, удовлетворяла ли электронная подпись это требование. Причем электронная подпись представляла собой автоматически сгенерированный нижний колонтитул в электронном письме адвоката стороны. Суд установил, что такой подписи достаточно для удовлетворения требования Закона об имущественном праве (Прочие положения) 1989 года, ст. 2(3), – section 2(3) of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989. Примечательно, что до этого английским судом упомянутое правовое отношение не исследовалось, таким образом, это первое сообщение о судебном решении, когда суд должен был решить этот конкретный вопрос.
Важно иметь в виду, что как решение окружного суда это решение имеет ограниченную прецедентную ценность, поскольку оно не будет автоматически обязательным для другого судьи Высокого суда или окружного суда, но оно отражает рекомендации, содержащиеся в отчете Юридической комиссии 2019 года, что электронная подпись по закону может использоваться для оформления документа при условии, что лицо, подписывающее документ, намеревается подтвердить подлинность документа и любых соответствующих формальностей, связанных с оформлением этого документа (независимо от того, требуется ли это законом или установлено в контракте или другом инструменте частного права), и вполне может быть примером того, как прецедентное право развивается быстрее, чем статутное. Поэтому стороны, ведущие переговоры по электронной почте (включая те соглашения, которые подпадают под действие законодательного требования подписания), должны учитывать возможность того, что автоматическая подпись, добавленная их программным обеспечением для электронной почты, может демонстрировать намерения аутентификации, соответственно, иметь тот же эффект, что и преднамеренный акт ручного ввода их имени внизу письма. В тех случаях, когда это не является желательным результатом, один из вариантов действий заключается в том, что стороны должны обеспечить, чтобы любые электронные письма содержали подходящую маркировку «без заключения договора юридической силы не имеет», «подлежит уточнению в договоре», «до подписания силы не имеет» и т.п. (subject to contract) чтобы свести на нет любое намерение другой стороны связать их обязательством посредством обмена электронными письмами.
Видимо, справедливо замечание автора о том, что статутное право отстает от практики торговли.
In a recent County Court case – Neocleous -v- Rees [2019] EWHC 2462 (Ch), it was held that an automatically generated email footer containing the name and contact details of the sender constituted a signature for the purposes of section 2(3) of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989.
Formal requirements
It is well understood that a contract for the sale or other disposal of an interest in land must (in addition to complying with the general common law rules governing contract formation) satisfy the requirements of section 2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 (LP(MP)A 1989) which provides that such contracts must: (i) be in writing; (ii) incorporate all the terms that the parties have expressly agreed in one document or, where contracts are to be exchanged, in each document; and (iii) be signed by or on behalf of each party to the contract. The issue before the Court in the present case was whether an electronic signature satisfied the latter requirement. This issue is not dealt with specifically in the LP (MP)A 1989 statute and had not been previously tested in the English courts.
Law Commission consultation
Without doubt, this is an area where statute law is lagging behind practice/commerce and in 2018, the Law Commission published a consultation paper seeking views on the provisional conclusions of its project to identify and address legal uncertainties concerning electronically executed documents, and to ensure that the governing law in this area is sufficiently certain and flexible to remain fit for purpose in a modern global, digital landscape. Among other things, the paper set out the Law Commission’s provisional view that an electronic signature is capable of meeting a statutory requirement for signature (including the requirement in section 2 of the LP(MP)A 1989) provided an authenticating intention is demonstrated, and a legislative statement to confirm this position is unnecessary. This provisional view was confirmed in the Law Commission’s report on the outcome of its consultation, published in 2019.
Facts
The claimants and the defendant were involved in a dispute concerning a right of way over land owned by the defendant. Legal proceedings were commenced.
The claimants sought to resolve the dispute by offering to buy part of the defendant’s land for £175,000. The defendant’s solicitor accepted the offer on the telephone and sent an email to the claimants’ solicitors with proposed terms of settlement. The claimants’ solicitors subsequently replied confirming the settlement terms were agreed.
In the usual way a draft consent order was circulated between the parties for approval, with the claimants’ solicitors providing certain amendments. The Court requested confirmation of the order the parties required/had agreed. The defendant’s solicitors notified the Court that the parties had not finalised settlement terms and that no binding agreement had been reached.
The claimants then sought specific performance of the alleged contract of sale at £175,000 contained in the email chain between the parties’ solicitors.
It was common ground between the parties that as the alleged contract of sale involved the disposition of an interest in land, it must satisfy the requirements set out in section 2 of the LP(MP)A 1989 (referred to above). The claimants argued that these requirements were met on the basis that the series of emails between the parties’ solicitors amounted to a single document that was signed on the defendant’s behalf by her solicitor through the automatic generation of his name, occupation, role and contact details in a footer at the bottom of the chain of emails. The claimants contended that the typed name of the sender at the foot of an email, whether entered by the sender or generated by software used to manage emails, was sufficient to render a document ‘signed’ within the meaning of section 2 of the LP(MP)A 1989 provided that the inclusion of the name was for the purpose of giving authenticity to the document.
The defendant contended that the automatically generated footer on her solicitor’s email was not capable of constituting a signature for the purposes of section 2(3) of the LP(MP)A 1989 and the alleged contract was therefore unenforceable.
Decision
The court found that the relevant email had been signed on the defendant’s behalf in accordance with the requirements of section 2 of the LP(MP)A and that the claimants were entitled to specific performance of the contract of compromise accordingly. The judge said the defendant’s position appeared to involve using a ‘serendipitous technical defect in formality to renege upon a deal’.
The reasons given included:
Many ordinary people would consider that what was produced when a person stores a name in the Microsoft Outlook ‘Signature’ function with the intent that it was automatically posted on the bottom of every email was indeed a ‘signature’.
While the email footer was created ‘automatically’ in the sense that it was added to every email the defendant’s lawyer sent without any action on his part, creating that rule and incorporating the necessary information in the Outlook settings had involved the conscious action of a person. Looked at objectively, the presence of the name indicated a clear intention to associate oneself with the email, to authenticate it or to sign it.
The automatic email footer was a sufficient act of signing because:
– the footer was present by reason of a conscious decision to include it, even though this decision may have been made the subject of a general rule that automatically applied the footer in all cases. The recipient of an e-mail would therefore naturally conclude that the sender’s details had been included as a means of identifying the sender with the contents of the email;
– the sender of the email was aware that their name was being applied as a footer. The recipient had no reason to think that the presence of the name as a signature was unknown to the sender; and
– the fact that the defendant’s lawyer had used the words ‘Many Thanks’ before the footer showed an intention to connect his name in the footer with the contents of the email.
Implications
Interestingly, this is the first reported judgment where the court has had to decide this specific issue.
It is important to bear in mind that as a County Court decision it is of limited precedent value and the decision will not be automatically binding on another High Court or County Court judge but it does reflect the recommendations in the Law Commission’s 2019 report on electronic execution that an electronic signature is capable in law of being used to execute a document provided that the person signing the document intends to authenticate the document and any relevant formalities relating to the execution of that document (whether required by statute or laid down in contract or other private law instrument) are satisfied and may well be an example of case law developing faster than statute. The decision may well be adopted and followed in future.
Parties negotiating agreements by email (including those that are subject to a statutory requirement for signature) should therefore be alive to the possibility that an automated signature added by their email software could be capable of showing the same authenticating intent (and accordingly have the same binding effect) as the deliberate act of manually typing their name at the bottom of the email. Where this is not the desired outcome, one option is that parties should ensure that any e-mails incorporate suitable ‘subject to contract’ marking to negate any intention to become bound through an exchange of emails.
Автор: Moya Clifford
Источник: https://www.hilldickinson.com/insights/articles/electronic-signatures-effective