Where is an electronically signed contract concluded?

• The question at stake: which is the competent Labor Court?

The Court of Appeal of Pau (CA Pau, February 12, 2026, RG n°25/01900) has just issued an unprecedented decision on the place of conclusion of an electronically signed contract.

In this case, it was an employment contract, and the issue attached to its place of conclusion was that of the choice of the Labor Court competent to hear the dispute. The former employee considered that jurisdiction lay with the Pau Labour Court, in whose jurisdiction his domicile was located, because he had signed his employment contract from the said residence. The employer contested this position because the electronically signed employment contract explicitly mentioned "on the last page and before the space reserved for the signatures of the parties" [an establishment of the employer in Neuilly Plaisance] "as the place of conclusion", which made the Bobigny Labor Court competent to hear the dispute, pursuant to paragraph 1 of Art. R1412‑1 of the French Labour Code.

• The position of the Pau Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal, confirming the position of the Pau Labor Court, which had declared itself incompetent, ruled in favour of the employer and developed a two‑step reasoning:

First of all, it observes that the intention of the parties was to designate the employer's establishment as the place where the contract was concluded:

"Nevertheless, it is apparent from the very references in the contract, namely "made at [Locality 8], on August 2, 2022" that the common intention of the parties is to mention the city of [Locality 8] as the place of conclusion of the contract, and not to give precedence to the place of physical location of one or the other party at the time of the electronic signature.

Mr [L] does not allege any defect in the consent when he signed these statements. »

But then, it takes a very original position concerning the place of conclusion of an electronically signed contract:

"Moreover, the court observes that following the employee's thesis and giving precedence to the place in which the signatories are physically located at the time of the electronic signature would double the places where the employment contract is concluded, would lead to total legal uncertainty and would contradict the will of the parties expressed in the contract, because an electronic signature can be operated from any interface in the world,   and the location of IP addresses itself remains modifiable or even falsifiable. »

• Conclusions

In the first analysis, the lessons of the judgment are as follows:

1. If the parties have contractually agreed on the place of conclusion of the contract, the physical location of one or the other party should not prevail at the time of signing. The statement is neither original nor specific to the electronic signature. It is part of the more general landscape of the question of the place of formation of a contract concluded at a distance and the provisions of Art. 1121 of the French Civil Code, which enshrines the theory of acceptance (place where the offeror is when acceptance reaches him), the doctrine considering that the parties may freely agree that the place of conclusion of the contract will be that of the issuance of the acceptance.
2. The second lesson, on the other hand, is very original because it states that in terms of electronic signatures, opting for the place of physical location of one or the other of the parties to designate the place of conclusion of the contract does not make sense, because this alleged location results from an IP address, which can be changed or falsified, and adopting such a rule would lead to a high degree of legal uncertainty.

• Practical impact: applicable law, competent jurisdiction

The practical impact of this decision is directly related to the question of the law applicable to the contract and/or the competent court if, if the parties had the freedom to agree, they did not do so.

This reflection must of course be articulated with the other criteria likely to impact on these issues, and in particular: cross‑border situation or not, imbalance between the parties, application of mandatory rules (which was the case in this case since the jurisdiction of the labour court is governed by the French Labour Code).

In any case, this is a first, and a very interesting one!