Member Article

Few may rebate that internet, is majorly responsible for most of the mayor changes in the past fifteen years in fields such as science, communications, technology, commerce amongst other being necessary to adapt the legal system regulating it. Honduras has not been the exception in this modernization process regardless of the civil code nature of its legal system which is not as adaptable as common law systems are. Almost fifteen year from the internet boom, Honduras is still discussing which is the better legal system in order to regulate e commerce transactions.

There has been isolated efforts to modernize and regulate electronic commerce, or electronic transactions per se, for instance 2002's Administrative Simplification law provisions that businesses may hold electronic accounting systems, or the 2001 security market law, which enacts the possibility of recording securities either physically or electronically as well as keeping records of the ownership of these securities among other legal reforms. One of the most recent attempts is the Investment law passed on July 2011, which authorizes the use of electronic signatures in order to celebrate any agreement between the government and private individuals, or between private individuals based on the security standards established by the National Bank Commission, stating that electronic agreements have the same validity as common agreements entered in paper and with written signatures.
This referral to the National Commission standards and regulations is a great example of this is that the Honduran banking is by far the more regulated and the primarily promoter of e commerce in Honduras, being the National Banking commission a pioneer in the regulation of e commerce in the banking system having passed several regulations concerning electronic signatures.

Another great breakthrough has been the approval of DR CAFTA treaty, especially in order to prevent any limitations to its use and development, prohibiting the imposing of any direct or indirect taxation to electronically transmitted products. It is also agreed that parties subscribing cafta are willing to work in order to surpass any barriers to employ e commerce activities by SME's

It is also important to state that in the past decade there have been several attempts in order to implement e-government, however to date are few government institutions that provide services to citizens through electronic means but isolated and independent effort. One example is GS1-Honduras formerly known as the electronic commerce direction, created by an effort of Tegucigalpa's and Cortés Chamber of Commerce, as well as the National Association of Manufacturers, in order to satisfy the need to manage, coordinate and standardize the development of electronic commerce, to automate and optimize the distribution systems and service in Honduras.

Regardless of its incomplete regulation in subjects especially in electronic fraud, is starting to grow exponentially.