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Jungheinrich
Main Uses in Modernizing Contract Management
Contract lifecycle management has several parts, each needed either or all of email encryption and privacy, security, electronic signature, and proof of e-delivery:
1. Pre-Contract Information, Credit, Operations & Applications Forms
In the beginning of a business relationship, often there are forms that need to be completed – some are more complex than others. Using RSign technology, one can simply pre-fill and set up complex the forms with rule that make it easy, guided and automated for recipients to complete, sign, and return; then post that form for download, or simply email the form to users.
2. Contract Negotiation Correspondence
During the contract negotiation by contract specialists, there are often a number of “Rounds” where the contract draft is sent from Outlook or a contract management platform to the other party, and comments are returned. There can be several rounds. Should a contract dispute arise in the future, even though these drafts are not signed and are not binding, litigators would likely look to these drafts to provide further clarification as to the intent of certain clauses or the interpretation of certain terms. As such, it is important to retain records of the correspondence sent to the other party, and importantly, record the correspondence in the replies from the other party. The simplest way to accomplish this is to use the RPost Registered Email and Register Reply™ service. This service can be used from any CLM, CRM, ERP or standard email program (by clicking the added RPost “Send Registered” button and selecting the “Register Reply” service option).
3. Contract eSign
After negotiation of the contract terms, a final contract often goes through a final review process for internal approvals, and then is prepared for signature by all parties. Moving this signature process to electronic can significantly reduce the cycle time of the signoff process which can have benefits depending on the type of contract. RPost offers two services designed to obtain legally valid recipient signatures on the contracts, returning a forensic record of the signoff event, time-stamps, associated content and attachments, IP addresses of the signing parties, with digital signature and other cryptographic authentication capabilities. RMail e-signature and RSign eSignature services make contract signoff easy, automated, and integrated.
4. Legal and Contract Notices
Every contract signed has a notice provision. There are notices that are sent during the life of
the contract, such as
changes in terms, pricing, specifications, quantities, and timing; as well as notices of
renewal, default, termination,
among others. Typically, notices are not effective until received; and if the timing of notice
is financially important,
one should ensure that they send these legal contract notices using a method that will have a
record of time and content
received that is generated independent of recipient actions. Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell
LLP and IACCM have
produced a document that serves as a useful guide, entitled, “Moving Legal and Contract Notices
from Paper to Electronic
Delivery: A Corporate Counsel Guide.” For contract notices, the time of receipt of the notice is
often important. The
legal time of receipt for email is well defined in the United States by the Uniform Electronic
Transactions Act, (notice
by email if receipt of the email content can be confirmed, with time of receipt being the
uniform time the email enters
the information processing system that the recipient has designated or uses for the purpose of
receiving email); and in
different countries based on the United Nations’ model law that has become the framework for
many electronic transaction
law definitions. A legal analysis later in this document
To accomplish court admissible and irrefutable proof of content and uniform time of receipt of a
legal contract notice,
one should send these using the RPost Registered Email® service. The simplest way to send a
these notices by the
Registered Email service from any CLM, CRM, ERP is by adding the .rpost.biz extension to the
recipient email address.
Alternatively, from standard email programs, one can install the RPost plug-in and then clicking
the “Send Registered”
button. This service provides the original sender with a Registered Receipt™ email record of
delivery, content
(including attachments) associated with the delivery and timestamp of sending and receipt. This
Registered Receipt email
can be authenticated at any time in the future and serves as an irrefutable and court admissible
legal record of the
correspondence. The recipient needs nothing on their end and does nothing different other than
reply to the original
email message using any standard email program.
When evaluating the risk of potential of claims of non-compliance with contract notice
provisions, one considers three
points, with that risk mitigated by use of the Registered Email service: (a) a claim of
non-receipt of the notice
entirely, (i.e. where the electronic message is sent from sender to recipient but the recipient
denies having received
it); (b) time of receipt is challenged, (i.e. where sender and recipient claim time of receipt
is different, and the
notice is time-dependent); and (c) electronic message content is challenged (i.e. sender and
receiver dispute the
validity or inclusion of certain content including attachment content).
5. Recording Interim Amendments
After a contract is active, in addition to legal notices, there are often requirements to amend
certain terms and record
agreement to such amendments. There is also a desire to do so without going through the entire
process of updating the
complete agreement. Once a clause is agreed to be amended, one can affect this quickly by
inserting in the body text of
the email the original clause with the new superseding clause. By then sending this from the CLM
system or from desktop
email software such as Microsoft Outlook with the RMail add-in as a Registered Email or Register
Reply email, the
recipient need only reply and type “Agreed” to affect a legal electronic signature. The RPost
Register Reply service
cryptographically associates the indications of acceptance with the message content of the
reply, and provides
Registered Receipt verifiable record.
This receipt (and received reply email) can be loaded into the contract management system as an
interim record until
such time as the full contract is updated reflecting all of the interim amendments. The proof
and authentication process
provided by the Registered Receipt is discussed earlier in this document.
6. Sender Signatures on Purchase Orders, Messages and Documents, Countersigning
There are situations where senders would like a simple and quick way to add their signature to email messages and attached documents. In these cases, leaving a bare image of one’s signature leaves one easily exposed to that signature being associated with other documents without the signer’s permission. RMail includes its Digital Seal® service with handwritten signature options to: (a) Time stamp the email and attached documents, (b) Provide non-repudiation as to the content of the email body and attached documents, (c) Sign the message body and all pages of associated documents (Word converts to PDF or PDF) as the sender, with hand scripted signature on the bottom of outbound email and attached PDF, (d) Sign as sender, with mouse-script handwritten signature optionally saved by RPost system, (e) Watermark all signatures with a timestamp, and (f) Digitally sign the attached document (if it is a PDF or is converted to PDF format by RPost), with a PKI digital signature for timestamp and content integrity authentication. Finally, there is a Registered Receipt email for the overall record of transmission with delivery, content proof, and timestamps of receipt, associated with the sender’s signature and documents. The proof and authentication process provided by the Registered Receipt is discussed earlier in this document.
Procurement Specialist, Coca Cola
Read more about this customer success story.
RSign and RMail e-signatures return an e-sign record with a robust forensic audit trail for high
evidential weight for
legal compliance internationally and eIDAS compliance in Europe.
RMail® email encryption provides simple to use and automated privacy compliance for HIPAA, GDPR,
and other state and
country regulations protecting personal private information, returning auditable proof of
privacy compliance in the form
of a Registered Receipt™ email record for each message sent.