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Mexico City,
August 23, 2003 – Today, the Federal Official Gazette (Diario Oficial
de la Federación published several amendments to the Federal
Commercial Code on its chapter on Electronic Commerce with aim of
fully regulating certifying authorities and electronic signatures. The
amendments aim to give more substance to prior amendments of May 2000,
where several provisions on data messages, their implications in
contract formation, and their validity as courtroom evidence were
incorporated into the Commercial Code, the Federal Civil Code, and the
Federal Law on Consumer Protection.
The main
principals adhered into the new amendments are: technological
neutrality, contractual freedom for the parties, international
compatibility, and functional equivalence of data messages with
respect to the information contained therein and the electronic
signature vis a vis the handwritten signature. While the May 2000
amendments had simply mentioned the notion of an electronic or digital
signature, the new amendments elaborate this idea by adopting the
provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures. The new
amendments thus give regard to public key infrastructure models and
seek to grant the same validity to electronic signatures as that
afforded to handwritten signatures. |
