SOLVING THE POSSESSION PROBLEM: AN EXAMINATION OF THE LAW COMMISSION’S PROPOSAL ON ELECTRONIC TRADE DOCUMENTS

Abstract

This article examines the provisional proposals on electronic trade documents published by the Law Commission of England and Wales, focussing on the electronic bill of lading as a case study of the proposed reforms. It uses a comparative lens to explain these proposals and the accompanying draft Bill as compared to other initiatives which seek to achieve the same aims, including §7 of the United States Uniform Commercial Code, the UNCITRAL Rotterdam Rules, and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records. This article aims to answer three questions. First, how do these proposals solve, what we term, the “possession problem”? Second, how do the proposals fit within the existing law of England and Wales? Third, how do these proposals align with other initiatives in this space? The authors of the article are members of the research team at the Law Commission that developed the proposals.