Contracts by Email
Published on June 12th, 2006 by DannyT. Filed under Business, LegislationI’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.
Brian Madden
August 8th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Hi, can anyone tell me if it is legal to make a blog about a company that owes your Co. money, and wont pay it…..?
My business is in Ireland and they are in Spain…
Regards,
Brian Madden
DannyT
August 8th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Hi Brian,
I would suspect the only person who can tell you “if it is legal” is the judge who passes verdict in the case if they took you to court for libel or similar. Depending on the terms of your agreement, the amount in question etc it might be better to seek help from some form of spanish legal advice site/business. Other places to seek help might be a local business link if you have one.
DannyT
June 26th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I’ve noticed a fair amount of visits to this page and have recently further read up on email contracts. An excellent article can be found here: http://www.legal500.com/devs/uk/co/ukco_024.htm