How to Prepare Electronic Derivatives of E-Documents and Paper Documents?

Corporate Registration (ER – Enterprise Register) customers can perform some transactions online by sending documents electronically. E-documents can be sent in different transactions made through latvija.lv.

In our article, you can find out the features that e-documents should have, the most common mistakes made in these documents, how to create electronic derivatives of paper documents, and many other details.

The conditions on how documents and their derivatives should be are stated in the Law on the Legal Validity of Documents^[1] issued on September 4, 2018, and the Council of Ministers Regulation. Apart from this, the Electronic Documents Law is also determinative on the design and elaboration of e-documents and their derivatives.^[2]

In the process of preparing and using electronic documents, the studies carried out by the Ministry of Justice can also be beneficial. The Ministry has made available the documents covering a few examples and the relevant manual, explaining the requirements for the preparation and issuing of the e-documents.^[3]

Thanks to all these, the right preparation of e-documents has become much easier.

Preparation of E-Documents to be submitted to UR

Obligatory Features of E-Documents

Just like the paper documents, an e-document must be prepared and issued following the conditions specified in the relevant laws and regulations to have legal validity. The obligatory features in the electronic documents are generally not any different from the obligatory features in the paper documents. Article 4 of the Law on the Legal Validity of Documents involves the requirements that give a document a legal character.

All documents should include specific details. Accordingly, in a document, the following information must be mentioned;

• >>> By whom the document has been issued
• >>> The date of the document,
• >>> Signature of the issuing person

Some documents can also be unsigned. Apart from these, as specified in the relevant laws, a document may need to meet different conditions to have a legal character. For example, there may be a requirement of putting the document registration number and the name of the place where the document has been issued.

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• Name of the Person Issuing the Document

The conditions required for the “person issuing the document” are included in the relevant article of the relevant regulation. Apart from that, depending on the issuing person of the document, additional information about this person may be asked.

If the document is issued by a capital company-type organization, the full name of the company must be included in the document as it is registered in the Trade Registry. Besides, it is obligatory to use the SIA or limited company name indicating that it is registered in the Trade Registry.

• Date of the Document

According to the relevant regulation, the date of the document is the date it was signed on or the date of the event, activity, or transaction on the document. When preparing an electronic document, it should be noted that when signed with an e-signature that has a timestamp, this date does not always mean the date of the document. Therefore, even if the e-signature contains a date when preparing an e-document, the date of the document must be specified separately.

• Signature

For a document to be legally valid, it must be signed. This general rule applies equally to e-documents. However, e-documents are signed with e-signature. Having an e-signature on a document allows it to be considered as manually signed.

Some rules must be followed when using a signature on documents. For example; when preparing an e-document for an organization, it should involve:

• >>> The full name of the signatory,
• >>> Title
• >>> Transcript of the official’s signature.

Apart from this, when signing an organizational document, special attention should be paid to the representation rights of the authorities. In other words, things such as whether a board member is authorized to sign the relevant document by himself should be considered.

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E-document Development and Signing

E-document Development

E-Document is prepared in a computer environment by using special software. The most preferred software is MS Word. After preparing an e-document according to the relevant conditions, it will be better to double-check the details and obligatory points.

According to the relevant regulations, the e-documents must be as follows:

• >>> In plain text
• >>> Office open XML file type
• >>> Open document format (ODF) for Office applications
• >>> In PDF format, which is the portable document format, or in PDF / A format for long-term storage
• >>> Digitally encoded and compressed image (JPG, PNG, or TIFF) format

After the document is prepared, it must be uploaded to a suitable place to be signed with an e-signature. A free program “eParakstītājs 3.0”, mobile application “eParakstsLV” can be used to sign documents with e-signature. Apart from that, the document can also be signed on eparaksts.lv ^[4] portal. After the document to be signed is uploaded to the relevant field, it is necessary to determine the format in which the e-document will be signed and in what format the document will be saved after it is signed.

E-document Signature Format

You can sign any document in PDF, JPG, or one of the similar formats and choose which format (eDoc, ASIC-E, or PDF) to sign.

• >>> If the recipient will use Adobe Reader or similar software to read the signed document and verify the e-signature, it would be better to choose the format of the document as PDF.
• >>> The EDoc format is preferable when it is necessary to sign not only text documents but also files in other formats such as images.
• >>> ASIC-E format is preferred if the document to be signed is for a citizen or institution of an EU member state.

The type of format is selected in the field where the document to be signed is loaded. For example, if the signing will be done through eparaksts.lv portal, the signature format is selected from the “Document Format” section while loading the document. ^[5]

If the signatory uses an e-signature in the EU or a country recognized in the EU, all of the signatures on this document must be in ASIC-E format. People usually prefer XML, SIG, or other formats for signing the document issued abroad with an e-signature. As a result, it becomes more difficult to verify the documents. Sometimes it may even be impossible.

E-document Signing

Apart from the exceptions, all registration documents must be signed one by one so that they can be attached to the registration file as a separate document. In other words, if a document is signed through the eparaksts.lv portal, the same process must be done for the other documents separately. If the document needs to be signed by more than one person, it must be signed in turns with an e-signature.

All signatories must sign the same document. If different copies of the same document are signed, the document cannot be legally valid. Therefore, it cannot be submitted to UR as a jointly signed document.

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Creating Electronic and Paper Derivatives of an E-document

The derivative of a document is the document that reproduces the original document in whole or in part and creates it in the form of a quotation, copy, or transcript. There are some conditions for this process to be performed and for the document derivatives to be deemed legally valid. These conditions are stated in the Law on the Legal Validity of Documents and Regulations.

The relevant law and the related regulations issued do not require the notarization of the authenticity of the documents. However, in some cases, notarization may be needed. Besides, if the Company Registry asks for it, a notarized copy of the identity document may be needed to be attached to the relevant document.

Creating Electronic Derivatives of an E-document

All copies of an e-document in the electronic environment are accepted as the original e-document. That is, copies created are assumed to be original. So, the relevant document can be sent to more than one recipient. Therefore, it would be better to send the original document instead of a copy.

If an electronic document is partially copied or summarized, the things to be done change. According to the relevant laws and regulations, the word “Abstract” is written in the upper right corner of the first page of the document. Besides, at the end of the document, depending on the procedure performed, writing “Copy” or “Transcript” may be needed.

If the declaration in the e-document is approved by the real person, the “Declaration is correct”, the certificate name and the name and surname of the relevant person will be included in the document. If there is a copy, this time the statement “Copy is correct” and other information should be included. If the e-document is approved by an institution or organization, in addition to the above, the information about the institution and the full title of the official should be included in the document. After all, these are arranged, the declaration must be signed by e-signature.

Summarizing an electronic document is mostly in the form of proofreading the original document. At this point, it must be made sure that the summary contains all the information.

Creating an Electronic Derivative of a Paper Document

To create a derivative of a paper document electronically, the whole or the necessary parts of the document must be rewritten. Then this document must be approved and signed.

To transfer a paper document to the electronic environment, it must be scanned together with all of its attachments or a fax image must be obtained. The format of the file created as a result of these processes should be PDF, PDF / A, PNG, or TIFF. Normally, copies of documents say “Copy” in the upper right corners. However, there is no such obligation when a paper document is transferred to an electronic environment. The absence of “Copy” in the upper right corner is not considered as a deficiency or disadvantage.

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E-document Issuance / Editing

Sometimes there may be errors in e-documents. For example, while preparing an excerpt from the meeting minutes of the participants, some of the information included in Article 285 of the Commercial Code may not have been specified. Therefore, e-documents with these errors should be edited.

E-documents must be signed to have legal validity. If the document to be edited is signed and corrected after the signature, the relevant document has no legal validity. Therefore, it would be better to re-issue a document instead of editing the signed e-documents.

Submission of E-Document to UR

To submit the registration documents consisting of the application and the attached documents, the latvija.lv portal service “Registration in the registers kept by the Company Registry” should be used. Registration documents for a commercial pledge must be made available to the service created on the UR website.

For the applications, the official e-mail address of UR may be preferred or the necessary documents can be sent through the “Application to the Institution” service in latvija.lv portal.

It should be known that the e-documents signed through the Eparaksts.lv portal do not need to be sent to UR via the “Send to e-mail” option on the portal. If the e-document is sent by this method, sometimes UR will not be able to respond or contact the customer.

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CONCLUSION

We have shared extensive information on electronic derivatives of paper and e-documents. As can be seen, there is detailed information that should be known at certain points. If you have limited time to deal with such procedures yourself, you can benefit from our consultancy services. Our expert consultants, especially in the fields of accounting and law, can quickly handle all transactions on your behalf. All you have to do is focus on your business. Contact Us!