Contents 1 Introduction
Realising the full potential of electronic business-to-business (B2B) exchanges requires comprehensive support for electronic contracts (e-contracts). To be effective, this support needs to be grounded in standards. The time is now ripe for providing such support. B2B commerce has really taken off in recent times, and there are numerous B2B standardisation efforts underway. Also, a major barrier to the use of e-contracts—lack of legal recognition of digital-signatures—has recently been overcome in certain jurisdictions, such as the US (see [1]), with others likely to follow in the near future—certainly by the standardisation is completed and systems based on the standards are in widespread use.
