PRESS RELEASE – ESRA Announces New Board of Directors

January 25, 2012

ESRA Press Release

ESRA ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 24, 2012  – The Electronic Signature and Records Association (ESRA), a Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing electronic signature industry adopters and providers, has announced its 2012 Board of Directors.

Ken Moyle, Chief Legal Officer of DocuSign, is the association’s new chairman.  He succeeds Stephen Bisbee, President and CEO of eOriginal Inc.  David Brinkman, President and CEO of AssureSign, was named Vice Chairman.

“This is already turning out to be an eventful year for ESRA,” said Moyle.  “With electronic signatures now hitting the mainstream, we have a full plate of issues to address in 2012, including data security, privacy, identity management, international transactions, and of course, helping federal regulators keep up with all the technological advances.”

In the past years, the association has been a vehicle for members to gain access to and share timely and cutting edge information and to interact with policy-makers to advance the adoption of electronic signatures in records in government and industry.  As part of its 2012 agenda, ESRA has launched a Speakers Bureau and embarked on targeted policy initiatives that promote a legal and regulatory environment that is beneficial to e-commerce.

ESRA’s 2012 Executive Board also includes Bill Brice, CEO of AlphaTrust Corporation, serving as Treasurer, and Donna Leaman, Assistant Vice President and Senior Legislative Counsel of USAA, serving as Secretary.

In addition to the Executive Board, the ESRA Board of Directors includes Stephen Bisbee of eOriginal, Olivia Sethney of Fidelity National Title Group, Michael Laurie of Silanis, John Levy of IMM Online, and Eran Aloni of Adobe Systems.

The ESRA Board of Directors is represented by Jeremiah Buckley and Margo Tank of the law firm BuckleySandler, well known for their pioneering work in the laws and applications of electronic signatures and records, as Counsel to the Board.

2012 ESRA Executive Board of Directors:

Chairman: Ken Moyle, Chief Legal Officer, DocuSign, Inc., San Francisco, CA

Vice Chairman: David Brinkman, CEO, AssureSign, Altamonte Springs, FL.

Treasurer: Bill Brice, CEO, AlphaTrust Corporation, Dallas, TX.

Secretary: Donna Leaman, USAA, Reston, VA.

 

2012 ESRA Board Members:

Stephen Bisbee, President & CEO, eOriginal Inc., Baltimore, MD.

Michael Laurie, Vice President, Silanis, Montreal, QC.

Olivia Sethney, VP, General Counsel & Secretary Fidelity National Info Systems, Santa Clara, CA.

Eran Aloni, Director, Head of Products, Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA.

John Levy, Executive Vice President, Integrated Media Management, Linden, NJ.

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ABOUT ESRA: The Electronic Signature and Records Association (ESRA) mission is to be a centralized educational resource for its members and the public with respect to legal, regulatory and operational issues related to the use and acceptance of electronic signatures and records.

For more information, see www.esignrecords.org.

Download full Press Release here.

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E-Commerce News – January 23, 2012

January 23, 2012

E-Commerce News provided by BuckleySandler LLP for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.

January 23, 2012

Washington District Court Rules ISP Contract Terms Were Not Reasonably Conspicuous . On January 3, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington denied an Internet service provider’s (ISP) motion to compel arbitration, holding in part that the ISP’s terms of service agreement containing the arbitration clause was not reasonably conspicuous. Kwan v. Clearwire Corp. , No. C09-1392JLR, 2012 WL 32380 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 3, 2012). In this case, plaintiffs filed suit on behalf of a putative class against an ISP and its debt-collection vendors for violations of federal and state consumer-protection laws based on the defendants’ repeated attempts to collect payments the ISP claimed it was due under mobile Internet service contracts. The ISP moved to compel arbitration, asserting (i) that its customers are required to acknowledge and agree to certain terms of service, including an agreement to arbitrate disputes, before using the ISP’s services ( i.e. , a so-called “clickwrap agreement”); and (ii) that the ISP sent to customers order-confirmation e-mails that also included a link to the terms of service ( i.e. , a so-called “browsewrap agreement”). Relying on the Second Circuit’s analysis in Specht v. Netscape Comms. Corp. , 605 F.3d 17 (2nd Cir. 2002), the court identified as the central issue whether the consumer had notice of and access to the terms and conditions of the contract prior to the conduct that allegedly indicated the consumer’s assent. With regard to the confirmation e-mail, the court found that the e-mail did not contain a direct link to the terms of service but rather a link to the ISP’s homepage that provided subsequent links to the terms of service. Further, the link that was provided in the confirmation e-mail did not appear until the third page of the e-mail. Thus, the court held that access to the terms of service did not constitute sufficient or reasonably conspicuous notice of those terms. However, the court also held that the consumers’ acceptance of terms through the clickwrap agreement would have bound them to the terms of service and the arbitration clause, but that issues of fact exist as to whether the named plaintiffs actually clicked to accept the terms. The court deferred resolution of those issues for a factual hearing, as well as a decision on whether a consumer who specifically declines to accept the terms of service is still bound by those terms by virtue of simply accessing the terms of service. For a copy of the court’s order, click http://www.buckleysandler.com/uploads/104/doc/kwan-v-clearwire.pdf .

About BuckleySandler LLP ( www.BuckleySandler.com )

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EU-US Electronic Signature workshop – February 9, 2012

January 12, 2012

A free workshop on e-signatures will provide the opportunity to learn about how electronic signatures work in Europe and in the US.  The event will take place on February 9, 2012 in McLean, Virginia, USA.

As internationalisation of the rationalised framework is of utmost importance, ETSI and Adobe Systems are organizing an EU-US workshop on electronic signatures. The workshop will primarily focus on policy issues and exchange of views between EU and US policy makers.

Fore more information, click here.

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E-Commerce News – January 6, 2012

January 11, 2012

E-Commerce News provided by BuckleySandler LLP for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.

January 6, 2012

FTC Obtains Agreement from Payment Processor to Prohibit Use of New Payment Method . On January 5, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a settlement with a payment processor and two of its principals that will prohibit the company from using a new payment method, through which accounts were debited without account-holder consent. The FTC alleged that the company actively promoted the method as a way to avoid scrutiny associated with other payment methods, and ignored red flags – such as payment-rejection rates exceeding 80 percent – that its merchant customers were seeking to defraud account-holders. As a result, according to the FTC, consumers incurred significant costs, including for overdraft fees. In addition to banning the use of this payment process, the settlement requires, among other things, that the company monitor client return rates and investigate rates exceeding 2.5 percent. For a copy of the FTC release, please seehttp://www.ftc.gov/opa/2012/01/landmark.shtm .

About BuckleySandler LLP ( www.BuckleySandler.com )


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SPeRS 2.0 RELEASED

December 5, 2011

Updated Resource Provides Companies with a Guide for Implementing Electronic Transactions

Washington, D.C. (November 29, 2011)  – The Standards and Procedures for Electronic Records and Signatures version 2.0 was unveiled at the Annual Meeting of the Electronic Signatures and Records Association (ESRA) in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.  This new version of SPeRS (SPeRS 2.0) reflects current e-commerce business practices and updates applicable electronic record and signature case law and federal regulatory developments since SPeRS was originally published in 2003. The update also examines nationwide developments in the evolving area of electronic notarization laws.

SPeRS is a technology-neutral set of guidelines and strategies for industry use in designing and implementing systems for electronic transactions under the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) and state adoptions of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).  SPeRS 2.0 updates the groundbreaking guidance contained in SPeRS 1.0, developed by a broad cross-section of leading financial service companies and trade associations (for a list of participants, go to www.spers.org).

John Taggart, Chair of the SPeRS Drafting Committee, said, “This resource gives design teams, vendors, and business users a common base upon which to build electronic platforms and documents.  At the same time, it will provide consumers and other users with a ‘common experience’ across many online transactions. It will increase user comfort with electronic records and signatures.”

SPeRS has been adopted by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), and by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as a technical standard approved by ANSI’s Accredited Standards Committee, X9: ANS X9.103-2004 (Motor Vehicle Retail Sale and Lease Electronic Contracting).

Margo Tank, a partner at the law firm of BuckleySandler LLP, and who serves as Co-Reporter for the SPeRS, commented that, “The release of SPeRS 2.0 is very timely as companies race to deploy technology to remain viable in a competitive marketplace.. SPeRS remains the ‘must-have’ resource for companies implementing electronic transactions.”

Download Full story here.

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European e-signature workshop.

November 27, 2011

A workshop on e-signatures standardisation activities took place in Paris on November 21 in Salons de l’Aveyron. Hosted by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the workshop presented the draft rationalised framework on e-signatures and its objectives. It gave the opportunity to express and discuss comments with the initiators of the project and the stakeholders involved in the standardization activities.

Various stakeholders including European members states, industry, standards organisations and European projects participated in order to achieve the best outcome of the work and the widest possible share of views among all parties concerned.

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ESRA update 2011.

November 16, 2011

Find out what the Electronic Signature & Records Association has been up to in the past year.

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