Captured source text (L5)
2.1 Background
The Law Commission report [‘Electronic execution of documents’](https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/document/electronic-execution-of-documents/) (Law Com No 386), published in September 2019, endorsed an approach put forward by the Law Society in a practice note “Execution of documents by virtual means” that was originally produced in 2009. The Law Society had advocated this approach as a “prudent” one to be taken in the execution of deeds (whether by an individual or on behalf of a company) where the parties were not all present on completion of a transaction. The form of signature involved was a scanned manuscript signature being added to the final version of the deed. The approach was set out in the practice note and referred to by the Law Society, and subsequently by the Law Commission, as “option 1”.
The Law Commission agreed with the view in the practice note that “the PDF (or Word) final version of the document and the PDF of the signed signature page (both attached to the same email) will constitute an original signed document and will equate to the ‘same physical document’ referred to in Mercury.” This is a reference to R (Mercury Tax Group Ltd) v HMRC \[2008\] EWHC 2721 (Admin) where Underhill J (as he then was) set out section 1(3) of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 and expressed his agreement with Counsel “that that language necessarily involves that the signature and attestation must form part of the same physical document” being signed. This is why the form of signature used in option 1 is usually referred to as a “Mercury PDF signature” or just a “Mercury signature”: it is a form of signing settled on as a response to comments in Mercury.
Mercury signing requires a traditional “wet ink” signature. However, it can be regarded as a form of electronic signature because the process involved means that it falls within the definition of an electronic signature in article 3(10) of Regulation (EU) 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions: “data in electronic form which is attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic form and which is used by the signatory to sign”.
Full captured verbatim text
The Law Commission report [‘Electronic execution of documents’](https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/document/electronic-execution-of-documents/) (Law Com No 386), published in September 2019, endorsed an approach put forward by the Law Society in a practice note “Execution of documents by virtual means” that was originally produced in 2009. The Law Society had advocated this approach as a “prudent” one to be taken in the execution of deeds (whether by an individual or on behalf of a company) where the parties were not all present on completion of a transaction. The form of signature involved was a scanned manuscript signature being added to the final version of the deed. The approach was set out in the practice note and referred to by the Law Society, and subsequently by the Law Commission, as “option 1”. The Law Commission agreed with the view in the practice note that “the PDF (or Word) final version of the document and the PDF of the signed signature page (both attached to the same email) will constitute an original signed document and will equate to the ‘same physical document’ referred to in Mercury.” This is a reference to R (Mercury Tax Group Ltd) v HMRC \[2008\] EWHC 2721 (Admin) where Underhill J (as he then was) set out section 1(3) of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 and expressed his agreement with Counsel “that that language necessarily involves that the signature and attestation must form part of the same physical document” being signed. This is why the form of signature used in option 1 is usually referred to as a “Mercury PDF signature” or just a “Mercury signature”: it is a form of signing settled on as a response to comments in Mercury. Mercury signing requires a traditional “wet ink” signature. However, it can be regarded as a form of electronic signature because the process involved means that it falls within the definition of an electronic signature in article 3(10) of Regulation (EU) 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions: “data in electronic form which is attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic form and which is used by the signatory to sign”.