Are you led to sign documents regularly? Nowadays, you can get contracts and other documents signed from anywhere thanks to the electronic signature. Start or reinforce the digital transformation of your company electronic signature so that all processes are streamlined, and customer service improved.
Can I sign from anywhere with an electronic signature?
The real advantage of electronic signature is that no commute is required to sign since the process is digital. This enables your company to contract workers or providers from any country or to internationalize your products and services and sell them in other countries easily by signing contracts digitally with your customers.
Are electronic signatures valid in any country?
Click & Sign electronic signatures comply with the requirements of international regulations such as the European Regulation eIDAS or the United States regulation E-SIGN and UETA Act (Uniform Electronic Transactions), as well as with the legislation of 30 other countries.
For the US, the electronic signature is valid in all states and has the same legal validity as a handwritten signature. Most of the states have made few or no modifications to the UETA regulations and those that have made them have always been compliant to UETA Act.
In other countries we can highlight the following regulations:
- South Africa. The South African Law on Electronic Communications and Transactions and Common Law of 2002 Number 25 of 2002 guarantees the admissibility of electronic communications in South Africa and alludes to the probative weight of data messages.
- Argentina. Articles 974, 978 and 1020 that regulate the probative value of private documents stand out in the Argentine Civil and Commercial Code. On the other hand, the digital signature is regulated in the Digital Signature Law 25.506.
- Brazil. In Brazil, the electronic signature is regulated in the Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedure.
- India. The Information Technology Act of 2000 and the Testing Act of India.
Broadly speaking, all standards regulate two types of signatures:
- Advanced electronic signature. A digital certificate is included by linking the signature to the person who signs, based on a series of data on how to verify the identity. The digital certificate is issued by a trusted service provider or certificate authority.
- Qualified electronic signature. The signature includes a qualified digital certificate that allows the signer to be definitely identified. This being the case, the qualified digital certificate can only be issued by a qualified trusted service provider authorized by the relevant authorities.
Internationalization of companies and electronic signature
In today’s economy, many companies, both Spanish and from other countries, decide to bet on internationalization exporting their production. This means that the volume of transactions abroad increases and signing contracts without using paper seems to be essential. In this context, the electronic signature becomes the definite solution for companies and to be fully valid, it must meet some requirements:
- It is uniquely linked to the subject who signs.
- To have legal validity in the country of origin.
- The country has the appropriate technology appropriate for the agencies authorized to issue an advanced electronic signature.
Ultimately, it is essential to guarantee the identity of the two parties signing the contract and that the electronic signature is supported, in terms of its legal validity, by the laws of the two countries.
For Spain, the validity of the electronic signature is derived from:
- Article 25 of the eIDAS regulation establishes that:
- An electronic signature shall not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings solely on the grounds that it is in an electronic signature or that it does not meet the requirements for qualified electronic signatures.
- A qualified electronic signature will have the same effects as a handwritten signature.
- A qualified electronic signature based on a qualified certificate issued for one Member State will be recognized as a qualified electronic signature in all other member states.
- Article 23 Law 34/2002, of July 11, on services of the information society and electronic commerce, which, among other aspects, establishes the following:
- Contracts concluded electronically will produce all the effects provided by the legal system when consent and other requirements for its validity concur.
- For the conclusion of contracts by electronic means to be valid, the prior agreement of the parties on the use of electronic means will not be necessary.
- Provided that the Law requires that the contract or any information related to it be in writing, this requirement is deemed to be met if the contract or the information is provided in an electronic medium.
Therefore, the internationalization of companies is becoming easier thanks to the electronic signature that allows organizations of any size to compete in increasingly globalized markets.