Business-to-business contracts made electronically

If you're selling goods or services to a business customer electronically, e.g. online via a website, there are legal regulations that cover both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contracts.

Under these regulations, you must provide certain pre-contract information to your customer. There are also requirements about how the sale is conducted electronically.

Information requirements

Before an order is placed, you must provide the following information in a way that's easily and permanently accessible:

• Your name and geographic address
• Your contact details so a customer can contact you quickly and effectively, including your email address
• If you're registered in a trade or other publicly available register (including the Register of Companies), details of the register and your registration number or other means of identifying you on the register
• If you're subject to an authorisation scheme, details of the relevant supervisory authority
• If you're a member of a regulated professional body, details of that body, your professional title, together with a reference to the professional rules that govern you and the means to access them
• The price, whether it includes tax and delivery costs, and the relevant VAT number
• Unless you've agreed otherwise with your customer, any relevant codes of conduct governing you, and where they can be accessed
• For electronic contracts (unless the customer has agreed otherwise):
• the different technical steps that need to be followed to conclude the contract electronically
• whether you'll file the contract and how it'll be accessible
• the technical steps to follow to identify and correct errors in the ordering process
• the languages in which the contract can be made.

Other requirements

If you're concluding a contract with another business by electronic means other than by email, you must:

• Acknowledge, without delay and by electronic means, that you've received the order; and
• Give the customer the chance to identify and correct any input errors before they place the order.

This will be the case unless you agree otherwise with your customer.