Law no.208 / 2021 for the approval of the Government Emergency Ordinance (OUG) no.36 / 2021 on the use of an advanced electronic signature or qualified electronic signature, accompanied by electronic time stamp or qualified electronic time stamp and qualified electronic seal of the employer in the field of labor relations, and for the modification and completion of some normative acts it was published in the Official Gazette (Part I) no. 720 of July 22, 2021, with the applicability of July 25, 2021.
According to the document, employers will get rid of the need to have the time stamp and seal when electronically signing individual employment contracts. At the same time, the document comes with other changes related to the electronic signing of work documents, among which the deductibility, to the profit tax, of the expenses incurred with the insurance of electronic signatures.
This will modify the rules of the electronic signing of work documents, rules that were recently introduced in the Labor Code by OUG 36/2021.
Thus, the parties may choose to use the advanced electronic signature or the qualified electronic signature at the conclusion, modification, suspension, or, as the case may be, at the termination of the individual employment contract.
The employer may choose to use the electronic signature, advanced electronic signature or qualified electronic signature or electronic seal of the employer, for the preparation of all documents/documents in the field of labor relations resulting from the conclusion of the individual employment contract, during its execution or termination of the individual contract, of labor, under the conditions established by the internal regulation and/or the applicable collective labor contract, according to the law.
The individual employment contracts and the additional documents concluded by using the advanced electronic signature or the qualified electronic signature, as well as the documents/documents in the field of labor relations are archived by the employer in compliance with the provisions of the National Archives Law no. 16/1996, republished. no. 135/2007 and will be made available to the competent control bodies, at their request.
According to the new provisions, the employer may not oblige the selected person for employment or, as the case may be, the employee to use the advanced electronic signature or qualified electronic signature, at the conclusion, modification, suspension or, as the case may be, at the termination of the individual employment contract.
We mention that it has been kept the fact that when concluding, modifying, suspending, or, as the case may be, at the termination of the individual employment contract, the parties must use the same type of signature (holographic signature or electronic signature).
This means that the employee will not be able to sign a contract by hand, so that later the employer can take the respective document and sign it electronically, both of them must sign in the same way.
The competent control bodies have the obligation to accept, for verification and control, individual employment contracts and additional documents, as well as documents/documents in the field of labor relations / occupational safety and health, concluded in electronic format, with electronic signature, according to law, without requesting them in letter format. At their request, the documents concluded with an electronic signature can be transmitted in electronic format and prior to the control.
The notions of electronic signature, advanced electronic signature, qualified electronic signature, and electronic seal, used in the normative acts that are the object of art. I-III of this emergency ordinance has the meaning given by the provisions of Regulation (EU) no. 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and reliable services for electronic transactions on the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93 / EC.
Definitions are taken from Regulation (EU) no. 910/2014:
- electronic signature = data in electronic format, attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic format and which are used by the signatory to sign;
- advanced electronic signature = an electronic signature that meets the following requirements:
- refers exclusively to the signatory;
– allows the identification of the signatory;
– is created using electronic signature creation data that the signatory can use, with a high level of trust, exclusively under his control; and
– is related to the data used for signing so that any subsequent modification of the data can be detected
- qualified electronic signature = an advanced electronic signature which is created by a qualified electronic signature creation device and which is based on a qualified certificate for electronic signatures;
- „electronic seal = data in the electronic format attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic format to ensure the origin and integrity of the latter;
Among the amendments brought by Law no. 20/20/2021 we find the fact that the employer can bear, for himself and his employees, the expenses for the acquisition of advanced electronic signatures or qualified electronic signatures used for signing documents in the field of labor relations/safety and health at work.
We emphasize that, according to the provisions of Law no. 20/20/2021, these expenses represent deductible expenses for determining the fiscal result.
Legal basis
– Law 135/2007 regarding the archiving of documents in electronic form *) – Republished;
– OUG 36/2021 regarding the use of the electronic signature in the field of labor relations and for the modification and completion of some normative acts;
– Law 208/2021 for the approval of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 36/2021 regarding the use of the advanced electronic signature or the qualified electronic signature, accompanied by the electronic time stamp or the qualified electronic time stamp and the qualified electronic seal of the employer in the field of labor relations, and for the modification and completion of some normative acts;
– EU Regulation no. 910/23-July-2014 on electronic identification and reliable services for electronic transactions on the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93 / EC