22 August 2002

Eversheds e80
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The e-news service from Eversheds - Business Lawyers in Europe

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Practical Steps to Compliance with the E-Commerce Regulations

In yesterday's e80 we promised some practical steps to comply with the
Regulations which came in yesterday.

1. Information to be provided

In order to comply with the general information requirements under the
Regulations, the required information may be set out on your website. The
required information is:

· your name;
· your geographic address;
· your details, including email address;
· if you are registered in a trade or a similar register available to the
public, details of the register in which you are entered and your
registration number or its equivalent;
· if the service is subject to an authorisation scheme, the particulars of
the relevant supervisory body;
· where you are a regulated profession, details of any professional body
with which you are registered, your professional title and the Member
State where the title has been granted and a reference to the professional
rules applicable in the Member State; and
· your VAT registration number.

Where your website refers to prices these must be clear and unambiguous
and must indicate whether they are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.

2. Contracting online

Where your business forms contracts online the following information must
be clearly provided (in addition to the information set out in paragraph 1
above):

· all technical steps required to conclude the contract (for example
"click this box");
· whether the concluded contract will be filed by you and whether it will
be accessible;
· the technical means for identifying and correcting input errors prior to
placing the order;
· the languages offered for the conclusion of the contract; and
· any relevant codes of conduct to which you subscribe and information on
how these can be consulted electronically.

This information should be set out on your website and customers must have
the opportunity to read it before placing any order for goods and
services.

Additional requirements:

· the customer must be able to print and store a copy of the terms and
conditions applicable to the online contract;
· you must make available to the customer technical means to allow them to
identify and correct input errors before their order is placed; and
· once a customer places an order electronically you must acknowledge
receipt of the order.

These last two steps may require a restructuring of your website to allow
customers to go back and review and amend the information inserted before
placing the order and so that an acknowledgement is automatically sent to
customers on receipt of orders.

3. Commercial Communications

A commercial communication is defined in the Regulations to cover a wide
range of electronic forms of communication, including websites, emails and
text messages, which may be free of charge but whose essential purpose is
advertising. If your business uses such advertising or promotions you need
to ensure that each commercial communication:

· is clearly identifiable as such and where unsolicited, that it is
identifiable as such;
· clearly identifies the person on whose behalf the commercial
communication is made;
· clearly identifies any promotional offer (including any discount,
premium or gift) and any conditions that must be met to qualify for it are
easily accessible, clear and unambiguous; and
· clearly identifies any promotion, competition or game and any conditions
for participation are easily accessible, clear and unambiguous.

The easiest way to ensure that a commercial communication sent by e-mail
or text message is clearly identifiable is to mark it as such in the
header. The other required information may then be set out in the main
body of the communication.

For further Information:
Anna Tweedale
EVERSHEDS
annatweedale@eversheds.com
Telephone: 020 7919 0748
Fax: 020 7919 4919

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