Clifford Chance
Syndicated loans: can you sign electronically?
9 October 2019
The Law Commission has confirmed, in its report Electronic Execution of Documents (the "Report"), published on 4 September 2019, that electronic signatures can, for the most part, be used to sign documents. In the interests of reducing uncertainty and to increase confidence in the use of electronic signatures, the Law Commission has produced a statement of the law in England and Wales.
This will be of interest to participants in the syndicated loan market, where the digitisation of the documentation is considered to be key to making syndication and trading of loans more efficient. In this briefing, we examine whether electronic signatures really can be used as a viable alternative to handwritten ones when executing syndicated loan agreements, security and intercreditor documents and transfer documents in the loan market.
