Kirsty Newman 19:25, 2 Sep 2004 (EST)
The Commonwealth government has taken a step towards supporting the use of the internet as a means for forming legally binding transactions by enacting the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth), which makes electronic contracts legal, and recognises the legality of electronic signatures.
At an international level, the Convention on International E-commerce Contracting has been drafted, which aims to make issues of electronic contracts in Australia compatible with those of other countries, so that international contracts over the internet will have less complications. Although it is only in draft stage, it points to how the law in this area is likely to be developed in the near future (Shiu, 2004 [10]).
The UNCITRAL Draft Model on Electronic Data also points to a more e-commerce convenient society in the future, as it aims to ‘eliminate legal obstacles to contract formation by the use of electronic means of communication… and is intended to clarify or adapt the traditional rules on contract formation to accommodate the realities of electronic contracting’ (Beard, 2000 [11]).
E-commerce_and_the_Law
Kirsty Newman 18:57, 8 Sep 2004 (EST)
