The Impact of Verb Tenses on the Conclusion of Commercial Electronic Contracts of Sale

Abstract

New technologies in communications have accelerated daily transactions by concluding contracts instantly between persons spotted in different countries. Basically, to conclude a contract offer must match acceptance depending on parties’ intentions. Intentions are naturally invisible unless unearthed explicitly by uttered verb tenses. Consequently, verb tenses have impacts on concluding contracts. However, contracting using past tense differs than using present or future tenses. According to Iraqi and Sharia laws, some tenses conclude the contract, others do not, while a third category is in-between. Therefore, such tenses were envisaged as criterions to measure the extent of parties’ intentions or ‘meeting of minds’ to make a