Use MeSign App to digitally sign e-contract locallyComplete Contract E-signature locally without uploading the contract to the e-signature platform.

1. Electronic contract introduction

Electronic contract, also known as e-commerce contract, according to the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce and other electronic transaction laws promulgated by countries around the world, electronic contract is defined as “an agreement between two or multiple parties through electronic information network to establish, change, or terminate the relationship of property civil rights and obligations”. An electronic contract is a contract that is created and signed electronically. You may have written the contract in Word, but you did not print it out for signing, stamping and delivering it; instead, you send it to the other party via email, then the other party will sign the contract electronically and send it back to you by email. As shown in the following figure, this is a schematic diagram of the full life cycle management of e-contracts demonstrating the MeSign Contract E-signature Solutions.

The full life cycle management of the electronic contract still has five sectors, and only the contract signing sectors use the e-signature services provided by a third-party platform, like MeSign Contract E-signature Service. Adopting MeSign Contract E-signature Service not only requires the signer of the contract to be validated by an authoritative CA to prove that the signer’s identity is credible according to the requirements of the initiator, but also means that the third party notarized the true identity of the signer. Furthermore, it uses certificate to digitally sign the contract, and it uses cryptographic technology to ensure the non-repudiation of contract signing behavior, ensuring that the contract documents cannot be tampered with and guaranteeing integrity of the contract. At the same time, the timestamp digital signature is signed after the e-contract is signed, ensuring the credibility of the contract signing time. In this way, the signing of the electronic contract can have the same legal effect as the handwritten signature of the paper contract in accordance with the related electronic signature law from most countries worldwide. Not only that, due to the use of high-tech digital signing technologies, it can effectively solve the issues of the fraud signatures or fraud seal stamps on the traditional paper contract, effectively solve the issues of the unrecognizable fake counterfeit signatures and official seal stamps, and effectively solve the contract signing time being counterfeited problem, also effectively solves the problem that the content of the contract may be tampered after signed. These are because digital signatures using cryptographic technology cannot be counterfeit and cannot be tampered with.

Comparing to the life cycle management of the traditional paper contract, the life cycle management of electronic contract completed by MeSign Contract E-signature Solution uses emailing the e-contract to replace mailing the contract by carriers and use electronic signature to replace handwritten signature or the physical stamps. While the other processes in the management lifecycle are still the same to the processes in the traditional lifecycle management. Therefore, MeSign Contract E-signature Solution doesn’t change the process on managing the contract lifecycle. In addition, we don’t provide contract archiving and filing services, so these works are still managed by the users, and no any necessary to purchase the e-contract verification services additionally because MeSign Contract E-signature Solution uses the Adobe global trusted signing certificate to sign documents, so that the signed documents will be verified instantly when user open it in Adobe Reader. Therefore, if there is a contract dispute and a lawsuit is needed, then either party just need to provide the signed e-contract to the court. It is because the authenticity of the signed e-contract can be verified automatically once it be opened by the Adobe Reader. Therefore, with MeSign Contract E-signature Solution, no addition proof will be needed (except the court has other requirements).

MeSign Contract E-signature Service provides two types of services to global users: first one is to manually sign the e-contract using the MeSign App, and the second one is to deploy the e-Signature system or call E-sign API to automatically sign the e-contract in batch. MeSign Contract E-signature Services only provide digital signature method to sign the contract that all signer’s identity must be validated. The signed contract files are Adobe Reader global trusted, LTV support and global legal effect.

2. How to use the Contract Signing function

For small and medium-sized enterprises that only need to sign a small number of electronic contracts every day, it is recommended to use the MeSign App to manually sign electronic contracts. Users need to purchase the Contract E-signature Service and complete the identity validation as required. MeSign Contract E-signature Service uses digital signature and does not provide electronic signature method to sign contract that only validate the signer's email address. Not only the contract service user (contract initiator) needs to validate the authentic identity, but also the contract signing party needs to validate the authentic identity. After completing the identity validation, MeSign Contract E-signature Service will automatically configure Adobe global trusted PDF signing certificate for each contract signer for free to digitally sign the contract.

MeSign App (an email client) integrates Contract E-signature functions, providing global users with a one-stop e-contract signing service based on email transmission, which ensures that the entire process of e-contract signing is encrypted, and the signed contract file are encrypted stored in the user’s mail server. The contract signing initiator must use the MeSign App to initiate the contract signing, all contract signatories also must use MeSign App to sign the contract, to guarantee the entire process of contract signing can be encrypted, ensuring the security of personal privacy and commercial confidential information in the contract. The contract e-signing service is completed by the MeSign App on the user's computer, and it do not upload the original contract to the e-signature platform, protecting the confidential information in the contract effectively.

The following left figure shows the user interface of the MeSign E-signature service. Click “Contract Signing” to initiate contract signing. After the signing party receives the notification email of the contract to be signed, right-click on the email attachment to complete the contract signing, as shown in the right figure below.

Using MeSign App to sign the electronic contract, the signing process is the same as the paper contract signing process, which provides duplicate or multiple copies as well (Global Originality). Each signer holds one copy, and each signed contract file has its own email address watermark to prevent the contract from being leaked by captured screenshot or photo. Therefore, if the contract has been leaked, the email address watermarks can effectively track the path of the contract leakage, which reduce the risk of the contract leakage. This protection measure makes the e-contract signing more secure than the traditional paper contract signing, and effectively solves the risk of the paper contract being leaked by photocopying.

The process of the e-contract signing by using MeSign App is proceeded based on the email transmission, as long as all signatories can receive email, the contract signing can be done by themselves. This solution is especially suitable for the users who use emails for business communications. These users can complete the e-contract signing instantly by clicking the contract files attached on the email. MeSign Contract E-signature service is not only suitable for the signing e-commerce contracts, but also very suitable for cross border trading and cooperation contract and agreement signing with China partners, to achieve global business contract signing and global legal effect.

MeSign Contract E-signature Service only charges the contract initiator for the annual contract signing service fee and does not charge according to the contract signing quantity! If the contract signing party does not purchase the MeSign Contract E-signature service, the identity validation cost shall be borne by the contract initiator, and the contract signing party shall sign completely free of charge. When purchasing Contract E-signature service, users need to purchase the contract signer identity validation service package at the same time.

Users can not only use MeSign App for signing various commercial contracts manually, but also can use it for signing employment agreements. As long as the organization finish the organization validations and the employee finish the employee validations, then all employees can use MeSign App to finish the employment agreement with encryption for the entire signing process.

3. The signed contract file sample download

Please click to download the signed contract sample files:
two companies one company and one individual