including, China, Singapore and India,58 and of course South Africa,59 with Lesotho
dragging behind only to follow suit with the envisaged Bill.60
It is a settled position of law that electronic transactions legislations provide default
rules for determining the time of receipt and dispatch of data messages, and that they
do not always provide precise criteria for ascertaining time of contract formation. 61 It
is commendable that Lesotho Electronic Transactions and Electronic Commerce Bill
2013 (the Lesotho Bill),62 just like the South Africa’s Electronic Communications and
Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (the ECT Act),63 has a provision for the time of electronic
contract formation, which remains a virgin area in most jurisdictions.64 The Bill is a
welcome move towards the proposed implementation of the Model Law on ECommerce in Lesotho.
1.4 RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This study seeks to interrogate the Lesotho Bill, and compare it with South Africa’s
ECT Act in so far as it relates to electronic contracts. The comparative study is based
on South Africa’s ECT Act because it is trite that Lesotho applies the same common
law contract requirements as South Africa.65 The common law of South Africa is based
on the Roman-Dutch Law, and that generally, the same common law applies in
Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.66 This position was reaffirmed by Kee in stating that the South Africa’s legal system and its contract law in
particular, also applies in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. 67
58
Fitzgerald et al (2007: 544).
The ECT Act.
60 The Lesotho Electronic Transactions and Electronic Commerce Bill 2013 available at www.itu.int/en/ITUD/Projects/ITU-EC-ACP/HIPSSA/Pages/In-country-assistance/Lesotho.aspx (accessed 20 October 2014).
61 Tasneem, F. (2014) “Electronic contracts and cloud computing” 9 JICLT 105.
62 S15 of the Bill.
63 S22 ECT Act.
64 Pistorius (2006: 178 at 206).
65 Non-academic Workers Union v National University of Lesotho available at
www.lesotholii.org (accessed 18 April 2014).
66 Campell, D. et al. (2009) “Remedies for international sellers of goods” 1.
67 Kee, I. (2012) “Global sales and contract law” 25.
59
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