Legal Issue Of Contract Law And Evidence In Ecommerce

8 Pages 2066 Words

The IT revolution in the past few years has taken the whole world by storm, at the forefront of which is the Internet an its various applications. It has become a major player in the business world today and the revenue generated through commercial websites sums up to almost 87 billion dollars per anum on an average.

The rise in Ecommerce has given rise to crimes on the internet as well, ranging from piracy, theft, fraud and misrepresentation. This steep rise in electronic crimes has provoked lawmakers to create laws in order to protect the consumers and companies on the internet so that Ecommerce may prosper and grow.

This paper discusses the legal issue of “Contract Law and Evidence” in Ecommerce.

General principles

The general principles include that the parties must intend to form a contract, must show that intention in a way that would normally be understood as forming a contract by the parties and by anyone observing the parties, and there must be agreement on the essential terms of the contract

Contract Formation in general

1. A contract for sale of goods may be made in any manner sufficient to show agreement, including conduct by both parties which recognizes the existence of a contract.

2. An agreement sufficient to constitute a contract for sale may be found even though the moment of its making is undetermined.

3. Even though one or more terms are left open, a contract for sale does not fail for indefiniteness if the parties intended to make a contract and there is a reasonably certain basis for giving an appropriate remedy.

When is communication dispatched ?

Under both instruments, a communication is dispatched when it departs the information system designated for electronic communication. In other words, in the case of an e-mail, when your message leaves your server and goes out into the "ether" is when the message was dispatched.

As another example, for a form filled out and sent fr...