Electronic registered mail

Since 28 September 2016, companies and public services in Belgium are legally authorised to send electronic registered mails^[1]. The legislature has thus implemented the European Regulation no 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services, and further supplemented it in order to give the digitisation of the government and the economy an extra impulse.

The electronic registered mail is sent via the internet and is in principle equivalent to an ordinary registered letter. Nevertheless, only if the mail is sent via a qualified service provider does it enjoys the same presumption of integrity and conformity as a paper registered letter in the event that a dispute should arise.

It is expected that the FPS Economy will grant the trust mark to the first service providers in by the end of 2017.

The sending or receipt of electronic registered mails is not obligatory, but it can be contractually agreed. Given that the cost price of an electronic registered mail is significantly lower than that for an ordinary registered letter and given that the administrative follow-up is easier, it would seem worthwhile to study this possibility.

For more information on this subject, you can contact Julie Colpaert and Geert De Buyzer.

^[1]Act of 21 July 2016 implementing and supplementing the Regulation (EU) no 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 2000/9/EC, inserting title 2 into book XII "Law of the electronic economy" of the Economic Law Code, and inserting the definitions specific to title 2 of book XII and of the law enforcement provisions specific to title 2 of book XII, in the books I, XV and XVII of the Economic Law Code, Belgian Official Journal of 28 September 2016.