What is a signature?

There has been some excellent material written about which insurance companies accept which types of digital signatures, and for which types of documents. But have you considered the simple emoji. Kirsten Patterson, CEO of the Institute of Directors mentioned in her recent news email that a case in Canada considered the use of the ‘thumbs up’ emoji to be acceptance of a contract:

From Patterson’s email:

Another question for you: When is an emoji a business risk? The answer is when you use a “thumbs up” to agree to a contract. That’s the lesson of Canadian dispute where an emoji was deemed as official as a signature.

I can’t say I have ever used emojis in a formal business context but it is interesting to see how courts are beginning to interpret this new – and usually innocuous – form of communication. Find out more in the article below.

Context does count, as you will read if you check out the details, at this link: https://thelawassociation.nz/canadian-judge-accepts-thumbs-up-emoji-as-binding-in-contract-dispute/ but nonetheless, you can see how formality in our contracting is valuable. One man’s thumbs up could mean ‘yeah, I hear you, I need to look at that contract’ while the receiver hears ‘I agree to the contract terms - go ahead’.

This is a reminder, especially for those of us who have built a larger business out of a smaller one, that governance processes are not a hindrance to day-to-day activity, they are there to keep stakeholders in the business safe and ensure clear communication and consistent expectations about what the business will and will not do.

Thanks to Wikimedia commons for the Thumbs up logo, under creative commons license