The courts do not recognize the validity of an electronically signed employment contract

Date :

The Riom Court of Appeal issued a decision on October 4, 2022 (RG No. 21/02517) which is noteworthy since this court refuses to take into account an electronically signed employment contract.

The judgment is particularly well reasoned and the Court searches in a reasoned manner for evidence of the reliability of the process implemented. It finds none, the only document provided by the employer in support of the electronic signature being a screenshot of unidentifiable origin and containing only very summary information on the transaction.

For the Court, only the production of a file of evidence "describing the signature process used and the technical processes ensuring its reliability" could have made it possible to recognize the existence of the electronic signature.

Furthermore, in this case, no extrinsic evidence justifying the signing of the contract was provided.

THIS JUDGMENT CONSTITUTES A SERIOUS WARNING AGAINST THE USE OF PROCESSES WHICH HAVE AN ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE ONLY IN THE NAME AND DO NOT ALLOW THE CONSTITUTION OF ARGUMENTED PROOF OF THE TRANSACTION

Also read

Date :
Under French law, the definition of an electronic signature (Art. 1367 Al.2 Civil Code) implies a "link" between the act and the signature identifying its author. This notion of link is also found in the definition of the advanced signature in the European eIDAS Regulation (Art. 26) which states that the advanced signature must be "unequivocally linked to the signatory". But the meaning of this link is not obvious. We believe that it can be understood according to three approaches: a conceptual approach that projects onto the electronic signature a characteristic of the handwritten signature; a technical approach defining it via the electronic signature technology; and finally an opportunistic approach linked to the development of the on-the-fly certificate and the notion of evidence file, widely adopted by French judges.
Read more
Date :
In May 2025, we published an article on this site entitled: "Electronic signature, judges are rebelling". Well, they are fighting back even more because the trend is continuing. Since then, many decisions concerning electronic signature have been handed down by courts of appeal, including a good number of refusals which, for the first time, concern professional leasing and real estate loans.
Their analysis is rich in lessons.
Read more