Professional paper
The electronic form of contracts and documents – a new form?
Tin Matić
Abstract
The form is an external manifestation of certain content. Legal transactions are divided into formal and informal. Formal, as a rule a written form on paper, was indisputable and defined in practice and theory until the occurrence of the electronic form. The electronic form is by its format significantly different from all legal transactions known so far and the question arises whether as such it represents a special new form or whether it actually fits into some traditional frameworks of known forms of legal transactions. After the analysis of Croatian legislation which may refer to the area of electronic commerce, relevant legislation of the EU, as well as the legislation of the USA which regulates this matter, it is concluded that the electronic form is more and more the object of regulation and that it is therefore necessary to determine its position within the frameworks of both practice and doctrine.
The electronic form is defined as the (electronic) record made by the appropriate device (computer) with the use of an appropriate /computer/ programme in the appropriate medium (hard disk, diskette, CD, CD Rom, magnetic tape and similar) which may be read, i.e. presented in the perceptive form on the screen of the appropriate device (computer) and only by its use and by the use of the appropriate programme it may be, at any time, printed on paper by the use of another device (printer) and the appropriate programme and presented as a traditional written document. It must be possible, as a rule, to transmit such a record by means of the Internet or another corresponding network, but it may also be transmittable by some other traditional ways of the transmission of messages. Therefore, the relation between the electronic form and the traditional written form shows that it may be a transitional form in relation to the traditional written paper form, but it need not.
The electronic form may be considered as only one of the forms of written expression which can be read and written by means of special devices (the extent of its use would include the elements of the term of electronic literacy of the members of a certain society), while the question of what is considered to be written is the matter of the legal standard of the time. We apparently live in the transitional period of time when the old standard in writing has not been abandoned yet, and the new one has not been fully accepted.
Keywords
form of legal transaction; electronic form
Hrčak ID:
5134
URI
Publication date:
20.2.2006.
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