🤔 Experience of primary court cases that shaped the practice of using electronic signatures

Salute,

Today I’m a little late and that’s why I’m writing to you only now.

It occurred to me to tell you a historical background about the Federal Law “On Electronic Signatures” dated 04/06/2011 and the prerequisites for its formation against the backdrop of court cases.

I think these examples will allow you to look at the side of legislation from the other side and understand how judicial and legislative practice work together.

Let's look at a few examples that played an important role in the formation of EP

1. Resolution of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Volga-Vyatka District dated August 11, 2010 in case No. B3-5226/2010

The FAS of the Volga-Vyatka District recognized the legal force of a facsimile signature, where the plaintiff demanded the collection of debt from the defendant for unpaid goods, since the defendant did not recognize electronic documents signed with a facsimile signature and argued that these documents were signed by an unauthorized person, without any certification center.

Based on the fact of this case, the court found that the documents were drawn up in accordance with the requirements of the current legislation, therefore, an additional agreement to the contract was concluded between both parties, which provided for the use of an electronic digital signature. Consequently, the court held that the documents were properly signed by the defendant's authorized representative.

2. Resolution of the Federal Arbitration Court of the Northwestern District dated June 1, 2009 in case No. G6-28501/2008:

The Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service argued that the OJSC had no grounds for deducting VAT on an invoice signed with a facsimile stamp - reproducing the personal signature of the head of the supplier organization.

The reference was to the fact that the submitted signature was not substantiated. Since the current legislation of the Russian Federation, at that time, did not establish acceptable formats for signing invoices, including not providing for a ban on the manager’s signature of a facsimile signature, the reference to justification was considered incorrect and a decision was made to approve the enforceability of the deduction.

3. Determination of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation dated February 13, 2009 under No. VAS-16068/08

In transferring the case on an application to recognize as illegal the acts of the tax authority regarding the assessment of taxes, the accrual of penalties, and bringing to tax liability under clause 1 of Art. 122 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation for reviewing the supervision of judicial acts - was refused, since the evidence presented confirms the existence of business transactions between the applicants and the LLC based on the presence of a facsimile signature.

Total:

- legislation is forced to provide opportunities for the use of digital signatures due to the transition to paperless media

- with the growth of legal entities and remote interaction, digital media, and the exchange of information requires confirmation of authenticity, which is subsequently signed with checksums separately in the form of an electronic signature

- the priority functions of document flow were established by the standards of the persons who used them: this is how UNEP works now or PEP when signing contracts, for example, with banks

- data exchange via electronic messages was subject to standardization on the basis of archival files with paper media and this caused corresponding difficulties

- agreements and additions to contracts could be urgent in nature and required a decision to be made in the short term at the current point in time, etc.

All this showed the need for additional regulation against the backdrop of digitalization.

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