Jurisdiction of Electronic Transaction in Thailand by Sangsit Narintarangkul Na Ayudhaya, Judge of the Civil Court.

As we can see from both provisions, the meaning of electronic transaction comes from the combined definition of these two Articles and it means that any contract or agreement made by electronic means which contains data message.

For Thailand, before the enforcement of the Electronic Transaction Act B.E.2544 (2001), Thailand did not recognize the validity and enforcement of electronic transactions and the Thai government did not provide any clear policies to support electronic transactions. In addition, because there was less cooperation between government agents, it affected in practice the facilitating of the obvious direction relating to electronic transaction. However, the crucial point that has changed the role of the Thai government to realize electronic transaction problem was the Supreme Court decision in 1994(10) relating to the sale of rice between plaintiff and defendant by using telex. In the decision, the Supreme Court dismissed the plaintiff case by giving the reason that the plaintiff had agreement to buy an amount of rice from the defendant by using telex, which means it could be considered that there was a sale of rice contract already occurred between the parties. However, the Supreme Court further reasoned that according to the Civil and Commercial Code B.E.2535 (1992) Section 456 paragraph 2 provided that contract of sale of movable property which has the price 500 baht or upward, such contract is enforceable by action in order to have the right to sue in court, if there is some written evidence signed by the party liable, or some deposit is given, or some of the amount of payment. In this case, there was no evidence in writing signed by the defendant, or deposit, or any part of payment that the plaintiff could present to the court. Therefore, the plaintiff could not sue the defendant for damages.

From this decision, it seemed that the Supreme Court reason was reasonable according to the law that existed during that time. However it was obvious that the decision would have an impact on commercial transactions in practice and the means of trade has developed from time to time, this decision would obstruct and not be consistent to the development of trade, international transactions in this day.

After the decision, in 1998, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested the Cabinet consider this issue and change laws to be consistent with the UNCITRAL Model law or regulations of other countries. the Ministry of Justice and National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) under the Ministry of Science Technology and Environment has joint cooperation to improve the law concerning electronic commerce and played an important role to draft the Electronic Transaction Act, which became successfully enforced in April 2002.

The most significant objective of the enactment of this Act was to recognize the legal position of data message as equivalent to the writing, or written evidence, to recognize the means of sending and receiving data message, the use of electronic signature, as well as the admissibility of data message in evidence in order to enhance the reliability of electronic transactions, so that it shall have legal effect as the other forms of transactions currently in use.(11) Currently, Thailand enforced its own Electronic Transaction Acts to apply to all electronic transactions.

According to the Thai Electronic Transaction Act B.E.2544 (2001) section 4, it provides definition of "electronic transaction" to mean