Contracts by Email

I'm pretty sure that almost any business or freelancer/contractor has wondered about the validity of Email contracts and personal guarentees. This article on the IoD site summarises a recent case.

In this case, an email containing the offer of a personal guarantee of £25,000 was sent by the director of one company to another company that was seeking to wind it up over unpaid debts; when the other company tried to enforce the personal guarantee, the High Court judge ruled that there was no 'signature', as required by the legislation relating to personal guarantees, despite the presence of the sender's email address in the header of the email. However, the judge confirmed that, if someone with the requisite authority had typed his name or initials in the body of the email, that would have been sufficient to make the offer enforceable.

Worth bearing in mind as reliance on Email is so prevalent in today's business dealings.

NOTE: this is related to UK law.