Obligations of the Service Provider in the Saudi E-Commerce System
Dr. Wahyee Farouk Luqman
Associate Professor of Commercial Law – University of Jeddah – KSA
Abstract:
In this research, we deal with the issue of the service provider’s obligations in the Saudi e-commerce system. The importance of research lies in its novelty and the steady development and expansion of e-commerce, in which the service provider, whether a merchant or a practitioner, is one of its main parties.
It is also important due to the special nature of e-commerce and its impact on the development of the economy at the national and international levels, given the huge volume of electronic commercial transactions circulating through the Internet, which is estimated at billions of dollars.
However, this importance of the Internet and the transactions taking place through it will not have stability and development except with full trust in it, especially by consumers who are considered the weak party in the contractual relationship in the electronic contract over the Internet. This requires providing effective protection for them through approaching legal texts that define the legal position of the service provider in the e-commerce system.
Accordingly, the research was divided into two sections: in the first section we discuss “the obligations of the service provider before concluding the electronic commerce contract,” and in the second, “the service provider’s obligations during and after the conclusion of the electronic commerce contract.”
Given the specificity and importance of the topic, and in an attempt to fully discuss it, we relied on the descriptive approach by monitoring the legal phenomenon or problem with the aim of becoming aware of its causes and attempting to find solutions, through presenting the legislative texts before establishing or analyzing it. We also adopted the analytical approach by analyzing and approaching legal texts in order to reach the best solutions to the problem, which is the legal position of the service provider in the e-commerce system.
We concluded that the Saudi legislator has tended to encourage the private sector of all groups to delve into the world of e-commerce, in addition to obliging electronic service providers to a set of obligations before concluding the e-commerce contract, which is to provide honest electronic advertisements, considering the electronic advertisement as one of the contractual documents that complement the contracts and are binding on the parties. We also considered the necessity of keeping pace with laws and regulations of global economic changes.
Keywords: electronic contracts, electronic advertisements, consumer, electronic communications, authentication.