A AIM Company Secretary writes...
Under the constraints of Covid-19 restrictions with more and more people working from home and buildings becoming closed (and potentially going into a total lockdown) … what arrangements do people have in place for getting documents signed/sealed?
Company seal for main entities are with me. We use DocuSign for a number of commercial agreements.
We have a ‘database’ of scanned signatures and we mainly use those but we always ask for the relevant individual’s consent before applying the signature and record accordingly. Although it’s early days for us in terms of working remotely I have too noticed some degree of flexibility we people asking for signed documents.
In the current crisis situation, as a practical point I’ve found that third parties are being realistic – where once they would have wanted a hard copy signature (or at least a pdf of one on an email) they are now accepting (say) a confirmatory email plus a phone call as a fraud check.
We are also making more use of the Companies Act provisions where (as everyone knows) the signature of one director, in the presence of a witness is valid execution as a deed. We still have a director in our office at all times, and if the office closes then we have contingency plans for signing things when WFH.
There’s also the well-established delegation of signing authority by means of a power of attorney, but I suppose if you do not already have that in place it will be hard to create and duly execute a power of attorney that effectively delegates signing authority.
Finally, although not part of the formal “e-signature” regime, a facsimile of a director’s signature attached electronically to an electronic document can be helpful
Have taken the seal etc home so we can do by post/courier if required. Have also got set up with Adobe sign so we can electronically sign documents.