Financial Times

UN Convention on the use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts signed

Sri Lanka recently signed the UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (commonly known as the e-Contracting convention).

The signing took place during a special event held in conjunction with the thirty-ninth session of UNCITRAL. China and Singapore were the other countries to sign the convention along with Sri Lanka. “The goal of the Convention is to enhance legal certainty and commercial predictability where electronic communications are used in international contracts.

It does so, for instance, by setting the criteria to establish the equivalence between electronic communications and paper documents, and between electronic authentication methods and handwritten signatures,” says Jayantha Fernando, Legal advisor to the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, according to a statement issued by the ICTA.

The Convention also contains rules on how to locate a party in an electronic environment, and on how to determine the time and place of dispatch and receipt of electronic communications.

It further recognizes that contracts may be concluded by automated message systems.

Several features of the convention have been included in the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006 adopted by Sri Lanka. Therefore ratification of the convention into national law would be easier than before.

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