International Commercial Transactions, Franchising, and Distribution

"36 However, the Convention leaves the time of formation to applicable domestic law.37 The Convention also establishes on an international level, as does E-SIGN in the United States, that communications are not to be denied legal validity solely on the grounds that they were made in electronic form.38 Specifically, the Convention allows for the enforceability of contracts entered into by automated message systems, even when no natural person reviewed the individual actions carried out by those systems.39 But one should note the Convention provides an opportunity to remedy input errors made by natural persons entering information into automated message systems.40 One of the highly regarded provisions of the Convention extends its application to other conventions already in force,41 specifically the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention)42 and the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).43 The application of the Convention to these two widely adopted conventions should be welcome to most international practitioners as neither the CISG nor the New York Convention contemplated electronic transactions.