O'Rourke Denis: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16132. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill is not one of the great pieces of legislation by this Government. In fact if it was it would be the only great piece of legislation by this Government. It is also not one of the many awful pieces of legislation by this Government and it has actually been crowded out by so many pieces of even worse legislation by this Government. So it is neither good nor bad; it is sort of neutral in between.In fact it is probably a piece of legislation that is not really needed at all because the general rule of contract formation is that a contract is formed at the time an acceptance of the offer is communicated to theofferor—that is when the acceptance is received. This generally applies unless there is an established exception. There is no such exception for electronic transactions such as emails. There is an exception for acceptances by post inAdams vLindsell so that the date and time of acceptance is whenthe letter is posted not when it is received. The reliability of the postal system was considered to be such that this rule should apply. Otherwise it would be impossible to complete any contracts through the post because if theofferor is not bound by their offer until the acceptance is actually received then theofferor if he wanted to avoid the contract could simply deny having received acceptance. So the longstanding rule for postal acceptances inAdams vLindsell is not applicable to or appropriate for electronic transactions.Contractual offers by telex as with the telephone are simultaneous so a contract is formed in those cases when theofferee accepts and that is accepted law. Although it is correct that there is no clear authority on acceptance by way of email there is no established exception either so the general rule applies in favour of acceptance when it is received. This effectively is at the same time as when it is sent if it is sent by an electronic means such as email. Nevertheless this bill will serve to clarify the law.I accept that the position with telex differs from emails in some respects because communication by telex is generally acknowledged at each end—the sending machine and the receiving machine. With email it is not known with certainty to the sender that an email has been received unless confirmation is received from the recipient. The sender of an email can obtain confirmation that a message has been received although that is not commonly done as we all know. It is also true that emails are delivered by a variety of servers and there is therefore not the same assurance that an email will get to the intended recipient as in the case of post. This bill therefore does deserve support as recommended by the Commerce Committee. I also support the select committee’s amendment of the bill to confirm that the contracting parties can decide for themselves when and how acceptance will occur and that the provision in the bill for acceptance as at the time of receipt will be the default position. This bill clarifies this one small area of uncertainty and would to that extent assist business in New Zealand.Given the prevalence of electronic communications in society today especially email and by smartphone and social media and so on it is useful that the current Act be amended in the way that is now set out in the amended bill. So although it is certainly not an earth-shaking piece of legislation it does have some use. New Zealand First will therefore support it.