TechBankruptcy

Surprisingly, the question of how to prove something was signed electronically arises relatively rarely. In Perry v. Ad Astra Recovery Services, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri tackled the issue, finding that the plaintiff signed a loan agreement based on the defendant's affidavit about the execution process.

Released on PRNewswire a few days ago was a press release about the first bankruptcy court order approving electronic balloting procedures in a Chapter 11 case. Using a system developed by claims agent Upshot Services LLC, the Chapter 11 trustee for Pitt Penn Holding Company, Inc. obtained a court order allowing creditors to complete and submit their ballots using a website interface.

As a Chapter 7 panel trustee, I sometimes annoy (to use a mild term) the occasional party - either because they don't understand the bankruptcy process, have an inflated sense of self-entitlement, or merely because my actions are inimical to their sense of well being. A California trustee, in a similar situation, found himself in the cross-hairs of a somewhat critical blogger in a Ninth Circuit decision that defined the scope of a blogger's right under the First Amendment to publicly criticize a trustee's actions.

A true digital currency is the holy grail of the on-line world. Since the start of the Internet, a long series of folks have been trying to find the on-line equivalent of cash - some kind of digital token that is secure, easy to transfer and, for most of the people who have joined the hunt, anonymous. Bitcoin provides the latest foray into this arena, and the Bitcoin story provides the latest example of the basic truth that payment systems are always dependent on the support of a strong, trustworthy third party.

This truth applied to traditional currencies, like this:

Reading a recent Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, I spotted an item in the Bar Discipline column that highlighted the dangers of not staying up to date with technology. A litigation attorney, let's call him Paul, failed to understand the rules governing electronic discovery, resulting in his client deleting electronic data and the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers issuing a public reprimand.