Summary
The security of the contract is always important when a dispute arises: if something does not go as ordered, the question of the evidence that will show up in court soon arises. In the analog world, this is a document with a signature and, if applicable, a company stamp. In case of doubt, the experts will clarify in court whether the document is intact and the signature is authentic.
Low probative value: Email signature
The written form of business transactions is now largely handled by email. While they can trigger legally secure business transactions, their probative value is uncertain, i.e. it depends on the environment and the respective court. Among other things, this must then decide whether the sender’s information in the email is plausible, for example whether the footer of the document with the sender’s name and contact details is genuine and whether a match with the sender in the From line. Whatever the outcome, the signature introduced by the acronym – is considered a form of electronic signature, i.e. the simple electronic signature (EES), with little probative value. This also applies to a signature image inserted from a file.
More information on law and digitalisation:
Jurgen Seeger
Jürgen Seeger was editor-in-chief of iX from January 1990 to May 2019.
This EES is quite sufficient for a number of day-to-day processes, such as recurring orders or internal correspondence. Common tools such as e-mail clients, PDF readers or Office packages offer the possibility to do this automatically with a mouse click or controlled by the configuration. And a scanned signature at the end of the letter can be visually compelling.
