Posts Tagged ‘Legal Counsel’
Hear legal experts present on insurance and e-signatures in NYC
Monday, May 7th, 2012
The complicated calculations and formulas used by actuaries to set insurance premiums build in the cost of penalties, litigation and settlements. If you are looking to lower your risk and avoid these expensive legal fees and fines, you should attend the two following presentations at the 2012 E-Signature Summit for Insurance on May 31. The two legal presentations will take place in the morning:
May 31, 2012 at 10:45 a.m.
E-Signature Legislation and Case Law Review, Lorde Lock LLP
Locke Lord LLP is a leading e-commerce law firm with deep expertise in insurance. In this session, partners Pat Hatfield and Greg Casamento will conduct a review of the US electronic signature law and share lessons learned from recent case law. The presentation will also feature a six-point framework Locke Lord LLP developed to help mitigate legal risk when implementing electronic processes. Looking closely at issues of fraud, repudiation, admissibility and compliance, summit attendees will learn how a well-designed process, supported by the right technology, can actually reduce risk and increase the enforceability of e-transactions compared to paper processes.
May 31, 2012 at 11:30 a.m.
Preparing and Defending E-Signatures in Court, Shutts and Bowen LLP
Ensuring your processes and records comply with laws and regulations alone will not keep you out of court, nor guarantee a positive outcome in the event of a legal dispute. The electronic evidence must be reliable and presented in a persuasive manner. Frank Zacherl, Partner at Shutts and Bowen LLP, knows firsthand the importance of preparing in advance for a legal dispute involving electronic transactions, based on his experience representing a top online auto insurance carrier. First, he will outline how e-transaction evidence should be presented to third parties and the court during a legal dispute. Second, he will share how the electronic process has changed the way companies respond to disputes, including the pre-suit protocol that has helped avoid costly litigation.
To learn more, consult the agenda and register for this free one-day summit.
Categories: In the News, Industry Insights, Silanis Events
Tags: 2012 E-Signature Summit for Insurance, e-signatures, electronic signatures, Events, Insurance, Legal Counsel, Lorde Lock LLP, Shutts and Bowen LLP, Silanis
Legal Experts Deliver an E-Signatures Webcast Worth Watching
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
On October 20, Silanis hosted a webcast to help financial services legal counsel get up to speed on legal issues related to electronic signatures. Co-hosted by the top two US experts in e-commerce and e-signature law, Margo Tank and R. David Whitaker, it was so popular we wanted to share their key takeaways.
Margo Tank, partner at BuckleySandler LLP:
- Covered the 8 basics you should know about the E-SIGN (Federal) and UETA (State) laws.
- Explained why it is critical to create reliable e-records – just because information has been created on a computer doesn’t mean it’s accessible or admissible.
- Identified the main categories of risk, and how to control risk with SPeRS (Standards & Procedures for Electronic Records and Signatures).
- Summarized emerging principles, including the need to preserve evidence of data integrity, screenshots and process flows, to avoid having e-records excluded from evidence or rejected from consideration during summary judgment.
- Provided a checklist for analyzing systems designed for creating, storing and retrieving binding electronic agreements.
R. David Whitaker, Senior Company Counsel with Wells Fargo:
Mr. Whitaker took a practical look at e-signatures from an implementation perspective. His authoritative presentation was designed to save you days – if not weeks – of research, simply by answering the common questions that he hears everyday on topics like:Delivering disclosures, agreements and notices.
- Developing a process or system for obtaining effective e-signatures and being able to prove them later.
- Introducing Electronic Records into Evidence.
View the E-Signature Webcast for Financial Services Legal Counsel.
Categories: In the News, Industry Insights, Silanis Events, Webcasts
Tags: Banking, Buckley Sandler, Counsel, Customers, David Whittaker, e-Sign Enterprise, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Events, Insurance, Legal Counsel, Life, Margo Tank, Wells Fargo
GEICO case upholds the law: e-signatures are legally binding
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
It’s a growing trend. In order to be more efficient and improve customer service, more and more companies are using electronic signatures to execute contracts, applications and agreements.
In our experience, the question of legality and enforceability is top of mind for companies considering e-signatures. In fact it’s very important for a company to understand the legal environment that e-signatures exist in.
Laws governing e-signature have been in place for over ten years now. Both the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) declared electronic signatures to have the same legal weight as their pen and paper counterparts, emphasizing that the same contract and evidentiary rules apply to both.
Nevertheless, there have since been several cases of contract disputes involving electronic signatures and records. Most of these cases focused on whether signing intent was actually established.
That is why one recent case in Arkansas (Barwick v. GEICO) piqued our interested here at Silanis because it actually questioned the validity of the UETA law.
Using a click-to-sign e-signature, an insurance client had waived the minimum medical coverage on her insurance plan. Later, after suffering an accident that caused her to incur medical expenses, the insured claimed that the electronic signature was not binding because it was not in ‘writing’.
Specifically, the lawyer for the insured argued that a general statute like UETA did not apply when a specific statute (such as an insurance statute, which stipulates that contracts have to be ‘in writing’) governs.
In a very clear ruling, the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed with the insurance company, GEICO, and upheld a summary judgment made by a lower court that had been in GEICO’s favour.
To paraphrase the ruling: the Court saw no conflict between UETA and the auto insurance statute and noted that the UETA could not be more straightforward in allowing an electronic record to satisfy the law that requires a record to be in writing.
The take-away? The law governing e-signatures is solid.
Categories: Customer News, In the News, Industry Insights
Tags: Customers, e-Sign Enterprise, e-signatures, electronic signatures, Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN), Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), GEICO, Insurance, Legal, Legal Counsel, operations, Silanis, Straight-through Processing
Silanis “Black Belt” Talks About E-Signature Security
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
If anyone has ever told you that an electronic signature is as simple as designing an “I Agree” button into a web page, think again. That may be true for a simple software license agreement (shrink-wrap/boilerplate contracts). But to bring complex, regulated, customer-facing transactions online without putting your organization at risk, you need to think about the entire business process.
Last month, Silanis hosted a public web seminar on security as it applies to electronic signatures and transactions. Michael Laurie, our legal, compliance and security “black belt”, briefly covered the basics like how to prove who signed, and how to make sure a signed document can’t be modified without detection. But the majority of his one-hour presentation took a deep dive into the rationale for transaction security and control. His main takeaway: keeping control over the process means that all the documents and the entire transaction needs to occur on the application server – no emailing documents out for signing, nor handing off critical steps in the process to other systems.
The benefit of this control means you are able to a) enforce business and compliance rules throughout the process; b) have real-time visibility into the transaction; and c) gather comprehensive evidence.
The punch line? E-signature security is about so much more than just the document or the signature. This philosophy has been at the heart of Silanis’s product strategy for years. The emergence of E-Signature Process Management as a product category reinforced the complexity of bringing business transactions online and the need for an e-signature solution to manage the people, documents, compliance/business/workflow rules, systems, notifications, distribution channels, exceptions and much more.
Categories: Webcasts, Whitepapers & Articles
Tags: Banking, Buckley Sandler, David Whittaker, e-Sign Enterprise, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Events, Financial Legal Counsel, Insurance, Legal Counsel, loan, loan operations, Margo Tank, Michael Laurie, Silanis, Straight-through Processing, Webcast, Wells Fargo
Silanis’ e-Signature Banking Summit confirms e-signature adoption has reached critical mass
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
All the presentations, conversations and questions at the e-Signature Banking Summit that took place on April 8 in New York city led to one solid conclusion—e-signatures have reached a new stage in their adoption by the banking industry.
“It’s definitely not about whether e-signatures are legal anymore,” says Michael Laurie, VP of Strategic Development at Silanis. “Now banking executives want to know how best to incorporate e-signatures into their large customer facing business transformation initiatives so they can achieve the benefits of straight-through processing.”
Hosted by Silanis, the e-Signature Banking Summit was the first of its kind and received overwhelming interest from the banking sector, ultimately triggering a move to a bigger venue at the New York Stock Exchange due to the high number of registrants.
Over 80 senior banking executives from the largest, most progressive banks and financial institutions in North America attended the day-long summit, which featured presentations from senior executives from U.S. Bank, a senior Gartner analyst, Wells Fargo’s legal counsel and a partner at Buckley Sandler LLP.
The topics, which ranged from the digital banking customer experience, to legal and regulatory news, to adoption considerations, provoked many questions about compliance, workflow and implementation considerations as well as e-signature IT requirements.
Participants were also keenly interested in a case study presented by US Bank’s David S. Miller and John Fraser on how their financial institution made exception processing nearly redundant by incorporating e-signatures into its consumer and business loan processing which is being deployed across 30013 retail branches.
One statistic delivered by esteemed Gartner fellow, David Furlonger, in his keynote, highlighted how important it is for the banking industry to continue the migration from paper to electronic processing. It’s not news that today’s youth love the web and their mobile devices, however the startling news is that by 2025, the number of Internet users worldwide is predicted to reach five billion.
This exponentially increasing number of ‘connected’ customers means that financial institutions have no choice but to focus on digital service delivery across all channels–whether it’s through mobile devices, computers, or in their branches—if they want to meet customer expectations successfully.
Another important takeaway from the Summit emerged in the presentations delivered by Margo Tank from the law firm, Buckley Sandler and David Whitaker from Wells Fargo.
Both their presentations reinforced how important it is to establish signing intent, stressing the importance of a solidly designed e-signing process as well as the need to demonstrate the signer’s ability to do so electronically.
Click here for more information on the role the e-signing process evidence plays in mitigating legal risks.
In response to widespread feedback from attendees who were hoping the summit would provide more insight into solution options, Silanis will host a webcast on Tuesday May 3rd. e-Signatures in Banking Use Case Demonstrations will feature Silanis’ Director of Business Architects, Yazan Alwaid, and show remote click-to-sign, electronic evidence playback, online delivery of disclosures and much more.
Categories: In the News, Industry Insights, Silanis Events
Tags: Banking, banking summit, Buckley Sandler, Customers, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Events, Gartner, Insurance, Legal Counsel, Michael Laurie, Silanis, US Bank, Wells Fargo
E-Sign Legal and Regulatory Update: Top Financial Services Law Firm to Present at Silanis’ E-Signature Banking Summit
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Bank executives and legal counsel responsible for mitigating legal and compliance risks for their institutions are invited to attend the E-Signature Banking Summit in New York City on April 8, 2011, hosted by Silanis Technology. Margo Tank, Partner at Buckley Sandler LLP – a top law firm to the financial services industry, will provide an update on recent court decisions involving electronic transactions, including the impact that implementation issues has on a bank’s e-commerce strategy.
As banks face pressure to comply with increasingly more stringent regulations, the ability to demonstrate compliance with consumer protection laws and other regulations is vital to reducing risk and ensuring electronic processes are defenseable in the event of a legal dispute.
During her presentation, Ms. Tank will share her in-depth knowledge of what banks can do to minimize their risk and even strengthen their legal and compliance position using electronic signatures.
Having played a leading role in advocating the enactment of the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN), Ms. Tank regularly advises financial service organizations on electronic signature and record matters, data security and related e-commerce issues.
She was also the co-reporter to the Standards and Procedures for Electronic Records and Signatures initiative (SPeRS), a private sector initiative of more than 30 companies that created industry-recognized “rules of the road” for conducting business transactions online, including the guidelines for the use and acceptance of electronic signatures and records.
“Since the passing of the E-Sign Act, the question on most organizations’ minds is not whether electronic signatures are legal, but rather, how reliable are they in helping organizations to defend their position should a legal dispute arise,” said Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO and co-founder of Silanis Technology, the electronic signature provider for leading financial institutions, including U.S. Bank, Stewart Title, Country Financial and 21st Century, and host for the event.
“The key to ensuring an enforceable e-signed record and staying out court in the first place, is to capture and reproduce as much electronic evidence as possible about what took place during the transaction.”
The one-day event will also feature presentations by senior executives from U.S. Bank, a senior Gartner analyst, and Wells Fargo’s legal counsel.
Categories: Silanis Events
Tags: banking summit, Buckley Sandler, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Gartner, Legal Counsel, loan, operations, Silanis, Straight-through Processing, US Bank, Wells Fargo
The Ideal Banking Experience: Gartner Analyst to Present at Silanis’ E-Signature Banking Summit
Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Bank executives looking to take their customer service to the next level are invited to attend the E-Signature Banking Summit in New York City on April 8, 2011. During the keynote session, David Furlonger, Vice-President and Distinguished Analyst of Gartner’s Banking and Investments group, will present how to define, design and deliver the ideal customer experience based on the latest consumer trends, innovations and lessons learned.
While most financial institutions agree that delivering exceptional customer service is critical for maintaining and gaining a competitive edge, all too often they impose a bank-centric view of the world on customers, and fail to understand what customers want and how they wish to interact.
Transparency, speed, mobility and choice are all top of mind for customers. Yet 20th century bank processes and operating paradigms, characterized by inefficient and time-consuming, paper-based processes, prevent banks from delivering on customer expectations.
“People’s work and home schedules are only getting more hectic, and so increasingly they want to be serviced over web. Consumers don’t want to have to go into a branch just to sign a document,” said Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO and co-founder of Silanis Technology, the electronic signature provider for leading financial institutions, including U.S. Bank, Stewart Title, Country Financial and 21st Century, and the host of the event.
“Moving to paperless loan processing has enabled our financial service customers dramatically improve service to their end-customers, resulting in 90% adoption of the technology and higher loan volumes.”
During his keynote presentation, Mr. Furlonger will dig below the surface to provide insights on what banks can do to deliver better, all-around customer experience by answering three key questions:
- What are the top consumer trends?
- What impact does digitization have on customer experience and bank capabilities?
- What lessons can be learned in customer interaction and experience from outside of the financial services market?
This one-day event will also feature presentations by senior executives from US Bank, Wells Fargo’s legal counsel, and a leading e-commerce law firm.
Categories: Silanis Events
Tags: banking summit, Buckley Sandler, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Gartner, Legal Counsel, loan, operations, Silanis, Straight-through Processing, US Bank, Wells Fargo
E-Signature Practical Considerations: Wells Fargo’s Legal Counsel to Present at Silanis’ E-Signature Banking Summit
Monday, March 7th, 2011
Bank and IT executives tasked with automating highly regulated transactions requiring customer signatures in documents are invited to attend the E-Signature Banking Summit in New York City on April 8, 2011, hosted by Silanis Technology. David Whitaker, Wells Fargo’s Senior Company Counsel in the Strategy and Operational Risk Group, will present practical considerations for fully executing financial transactions electronically.
Named “2009’s Mortgage Banking Technology All-Star” by Mortgage Banking Magazine for his role in transforming electronic mortgage loans from an idea into a product, Mr. Whitaker will address key issues tied to the use of electronic signatures including:
- Record storage and management
- Standards for presenting customer information
- And, electronic records evidence
“Moving regulated and high-value transactions to the web without introducing new risks is no simple task. Business processes, documents and data vary according to the product or service, jurisdiction, channel and people involved – resulting in hundreds and even thousands of possible variations,” said Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO and co-founder of Silanis Technology, the electronic signature provider for leading financial institutions, including U.S. Bank, Stewart Title, Country Financial and 21st Century, and host for the event.
In each scenario, the appropriate documents and disclosures must be presented and specific actions have to be taken in the correct sequence, in order to comply with various federal and state laws. Attendees will gain invaluable insights from Mr. Whitaker’s extensive knowledge of electronic records and electronic signatures compliance requirements.
In addition to co-authoring a book entitled “The Law of Electronic Signatures”, Mr. Whitaker served as an advisor to the financial services industry during the drafting of the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN), was the reporter for the Standards and Procedures for electronic Records and Signatures (SPeRS), and chaired the Online Lending Subcommittee of the Mortgage Bankers Association Legal Issues Committee, amongst other things.
This one-day event will also feature presentations by senior executives from US Bank, a senior analyst from Gartner, and a leading e-commerce law firm.
Categories: Silanis Events
Tags: banking summit, Buckley Sandler, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Gartner, Legal Counsel, loan operations, Silanis, Straight-through Processing, US Bank, Wells Fargo
The ROI of Electronic Loan Processing: US Bank to Present at Silanis’ E-Signature Banking Summit
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
Bank executives looking to quantify the value of adding electronic signature capabilities to loan processes are invited to attend the E-Signature Banking Summit in New York City on April 8, 2011, hosted by Silanis Technology. Two senior executives from U.S. Bank will share how their organization has moved to paperless, consumer loan processing across 3,000 retail branches.
David S. Miller, Senior Vice-President, Consumer Loan and Lease Operations, and Ben Carpenter, VP and Associate General Counsel, at US Bank will discuss why automating back-office operations with automated workflows and imaging isn’t enough to enable straight-through processing.
Mr. Miller and Mr. Carpenter will discuss how the manually processing of loan applications by bank personnel causes unintended errors and a series of ancillary problems and risks, and how US Bank eliminated these problems using electronic signatures to achieve the following benefits:
- Reduction in processing errors
- Decrease in future risks expected
- Document handling costs eliminated
- Redeployment of bankers’ time
- Improved customer experience and banker experience
- And more
“The value of moving to paperless processing typically exceeds customer expectations,” said Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO and co-founder of Silanis Technology, the electronic signature provider for US Bank, and host of the event. “Eliminating the time-delays, costs and errors associated with manually processing documents has an immediate impact on both bank’s front and back-end operations. And while the ROI of electronic signatures is extremely compelling, the improvement in the customer and banker experience, which is more difficult to measure, is priceless.”
This one-day event will also feature presentations by a senior Gartner banking analyst, Wells Fargo’s senior legal counsel, and leading e-commerce law firm, Buckley Sandler.
Categories: Industry Insights
Tags: banking summit, Buckley Sandler, e-signatures, electronic banking, electronic loan processing, electronic signatures, Gartner, Legal Counsel, loan operations, Silanis, Straight-through Processing, US Bank, Wells Fargo
