Jurisdiction of Electronic Transaction in Thailand

Songsil Norintorongkul Na Ayudhaya*

As we can see from this Section, Thai law establishes statutory principles of "Extended jurisdiction" or "Long-arm jurisdiction" to deal with the case where the defendant is not domiciled within Thai jurisdiction and the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Thailand. Section 4 ter mainly focuses on connections between the plaintiff and the territory of Thailand rather than connections between the defendant and the jurisdiction. However, in practice, the Thai Court is reluctant to apply this Section except in the case that the plaintiff can primarily show a connection to the defendant or defendant's act causing damage to the plaintiff.

With respect to electronic transaction, principles of jurisdiction mentioned above can be applied to any electronic transaction that has connection to Thai personal jurisdiction.

There is no problem in the implementation of jurisdiction over the defendant concerning the defendant's nationality because it is clear that no matter where the defendant resides, the defendant still has nationality to be subjected to personal jurisdiction. Therefore, if the defendant has Thai nationality and breaches the contractual agreement, which uses electronic means such as sale of products over the internet website, the defendant can be sued in the Thai Court regardless of where the defendant resides

In the case that the defendant does not hold Thai nationality and resides outside Thailand, the Civil Procedure Code B.E.2477 (1934) Section 4 (1) provides principle of personal jurisdiction over the defendant, if the cause of action arises within Thai jurisdiction. However, in order to determine where the cause of action arises for electronic transaction, we need to consider the place where the electronic transaction is made. Under Thai Contract Law, the contract is made when the acceptance is received by a person who makes the offer and the place where the contract is made is the place of residence or business of the person who makes the offer and where the acceptance
is received.(17)

In addition, the issue to determine the place where the contract is made can be explained in Section 24 of the Electronic Transaction Act B.E.2544 (2001) which provides that