Commentary on sections of the Act Section 2: Definition of "electronic trade document" Same information as the equivalent paper trade document
Some paper trade documents which fall within the scope of the Act have requirements as to the information they must contain in order to qualify as that trade document. These requirements may derive from statute, common law, custom or practice. In order to qualify as an "electronic trade document" for the purposes of the Act, a document in electronic form must contain the same information as would be required to be contained in the paper equivalent. Section 2(1) effectively provides for this requirement.
	The purpose of this requirement is to establish the link between the document in electronic form and its paper counterpart. It entails that, for example, not every electronic payment instruction will become a bill of exchange and therefore subject to the requirements of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. An electronic promissory note would need to include an unconditional promise to pay the bearer a sum certain in money in order to fall within the scope of the Act. Importantly, this section does not introduce any new requirements as to the information that a document in electronic form should contain. Rather, it requires information that must be contained in a paper trade document to also be contained in any electronic form of that document for it to fall within the scope of the Act.