Your Word Is Your Bond – Even Your E-Word

Why is it that people who do all their business on a keyboard linked to an electronic device are surprised to be told that when they put their name at the end of the email or other document it is a binding signature?

What is a signature after all? The courts have always been willing to accept that any mark made by a person on a document identifying it as the act of that person will be accepted as a signature. All sorts of hieroglyphics have been accepted as signatures, some so undistinctive that they are easily forged.

And don't be fooled by the old-fashioned meaning of the word 'document'. It includes text produced and held on an electronic device.

Our law caught up with the electronic age in 2002. The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act gave communications made by data message the same legal effect as non-electronic documents. The act relates to emails and data messages between two parties and to transactions of a commercial or non-commercial