The subject matter of such a contract must be lawful. The courts will not enforce contracts that are illegal or contrary to public order. Such contracts shall be deemed null and void. An agreement requiring the commission of a criminal offence is illegal and therefore void. For example, a person may not enforce an agreement with another party to burn down a house. An agreement requiring the commission of a civil offence (e.g. tort) is also illegal and void. (1) In most cases, the parties do not meet physically. 2.
There are no physical borders. 3. No handwriting signature and, in most cases, no handwriting is required. 4. Since there is no extreme security, the risk factor is very high. 5. Jurisdictional issues are a major setback for electronic contracting in the event of a breach. 6.
There is no single agency that oversees the entire process, especially with shrink film contracts. 7. Digital signatures are used and electronic records are used as evidence in court as required. 8. The three main methods of e-procurement are e-mail, World Wide Web (www) and e-contracts (click here to accept/contract online). 9. The purpose includes: Paragraph 2(a) of the Indian Contracts Act refers to the offer. “When a person indicates his or her willingness to do or abstain in order to obtain the consent of these others to such an act or to abstinence, he or she is said to be making a proposal.”[5] Advertising on the website may or may not constitute an offer, as the offer and the invitation to treatment are two different concepts. Since this is an offer to an unspecified person, it is likely an invitation to treatment, unless a clear intention to the contrary is expressed. The purpose of the test is to determine whether the person intends to be legally bound by providing the information.
When consumers respond by email or by filling out an online form integrated into the website, they make an offer. The Seller may accept this offer either by express confirmation or by conduct. When it comes to corporate websites, it is important to determine whether the content of this corporate website is an “offer” or simply an “invitation to process”. An invitation to treatment cannot be converted into a binding contract by simply accepting its terms. Rather, it is an invitation to others to make their own offer. On the other hand, an offer is the expression of the will to conclude a binding contract with another party[6]. It is generally accepted that natural and legal persons are able to enter into contracts, that computers are clearly not natural persons, and that neither US nor English contract law currently considers them to be legal persons. Computers cannot therefore be contracting parties. In our scenario, the buyer and seller are natural persons and may therefore be parties to the transaction. However, the stand-alone computer obviously cannot be a contracting party, in the current state of the law. Since electronic contracts are currently taken as seriously as offline contracts, the same principles apply here as apply to a valid contract.
The law already recognises contracts with faxes, telex and other similar technologies. An agreement between the parties is legally valid if it meets the legal requirements of its formation, i.e. the parties wanted above all to establish a contract. This intention is reflected in the respect of 3 classic cornerstones, namely offer, acceptance and consideration. In this scenario, once an item has been delivered and the price has been paid, the consideration is executed and the requirement is met. Problems may arise at a time when consideration is only executive.[10] This happens when the seller`s computer has no more than “promised” to deliver this item. A key intention behind such promises is, of course, the intention to be bound by that promise, in other words, the intention to create legal relationships. Contract law cannot be fully applied in electronic contracts, as is sometimes the case when using a stand-alone computer. [3] E-Contract Law and Legal Definition, US Legal Website, available at definitions.uslegal.com/e/e-contract/, last seen on 12/02/2017.
[4] Vasudha Tamrakar & Pratibha Pal, E-Contracts and their Legality, Legal Service India, www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/ecta.htm, last seen on 12.02.2017. The consent of both parties must be free from deception, error, fraud, etc. Electronic contracts can be roughly classified into:. Electronic commerce (e-commerce or CE) is the purchase and sale of goods and services or the transmission of funds or data via an electronic network, mainly the Internet. These commercial transactions take place either business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. [2] (C). Services such as electronic banking, stock sales, financial advice, etc. A difficult task when concluding an electronic contract is to know when an agreement has been concluded.
As soon as an offer has been accepted, a contract is concluded, unless the postal acceptance rule applies. The postal acceptance rule is an exception to the general rule that the acceptance of a contract must be communicated to the tenderer before a contract can be concluded. According to the rule, the acceptance of a contract is deemed to have taken place at the time of acceptance. Therefore, the notification of acceptance is complete to the applicant if it is placed in the process of transmission to him, and to the acceptor if it concerns the knowledge of the applicant, i.e. if the confirmation is included in the intended computer resource. There is no discrepancy between Indian law and common law in this regard, as in Lalman Shukla v.