In this month’s legal updates, Sophie Brookes, partner at law firm Gateley plc, considers whether an automatic email signature can act as a real signature, whether the actions of a company’s members were vexatious, and whether legal professional privilege can be lost when a company dissolves
Case: automatic email signature created binding contract
The High Court has held that sign off wording automatically inserted into an email was a valid signature and created a binding contract.
The facts
In Neocleous & Anor v Rees [2019] EWHC 2462 (Ch) the parties to a land dispute were represented by their solicitors. In a telephone call between the solicitors a settlement was agreed under which the claimant would pay £175,000 to the defendant. The defendant’s solicitor then emailed the claimant’s solicitor setting out the terms of the agreement.
That email ended with the words ‘Many thanks’ followed by a signature block showing the name and position of the defendant’s solicitor and the name of his firm. That signature block was automatically inserted into the email; the defendant’s solicitor had typed the words ‘Many thanks’ but not any of the other words.
