Draft Law 6543 Relating To Electronic Archiving

The current legislative framework relating to the dematerialisation and the conservation of documents in digital form is covered by a law and a regulation both dating from more than 25 years ago, and both of which it is now intended to replace. Draft law number 6543, relating to electronic archiving and amending the law of April 5th 1993 on the financial sector, as amended (the "1993 Law"), was filed with the Luxembourg Parliament on February 13th 2013 and is expected to be implemented in the course of this year.

Draft law number relating to electronic archiving is expected to be implemented in the course of this year.

The main purposes of the draft law are to (i) acknowledge the legal value of dematerialised documents and, provided that certain conditions are met, set out the legal presumption of their conformity to originals, (ii) determine the legal requirements in order to ensure a reliable and sustainable conservation of dematerialised documents and (iii) set out the rules applicable to the activity of providers of dematerialisation and conservation services (defined as "PSDC" in the draft law).

In this context, the new text provides that documents dematerialised by a PSDC, meaning under conditions offering sufficient guarantees regarding the conformity to the original, should automatically benefit from the presumption of conformity to such original. If there is no PSDC involvement, the dematerialisation of documents will not benefit from such presumption, and it would need to be proven that the dematerialised documents have been created while respecting certain rules and conditions. A new grand-ducal regulation, which will replace the existing grand-ducal regulation of December 22nd 1986, will lay down the specific rules and conditions, as well as the technical and organisational requirements, with regard to the dematerialisation and the conservation of documents.

Furthermore, the draft law provides that a copy of a document cannot be rejected by a judge for the sole reason that (i) it...