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10 February 2017 / Roderick Ramage
Issue: 7733 / Categories: Features , Wills & Probate
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E-material & testamentary directions

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Roderick Ramage discusses the challenges of will drafting in a paperless world

  • In a paperless world, the administrator has a very demanding task to discover what the deceased owned and owed if the deceased left no accessible records.

  • Computer Misuse Act 1990 and proposed law reform.

A fully committed “citizen of the internet” suffers a fatal heart attack at his keyboard: the match, with which he was about to light a cigarette, drops into the waste bin, and his computer was damaged beyond repair in the ensuing blaze. His business, financial and private lives were conducted on the paperless principle. He died intestate, and the would-be administrator of his estate needs to identify his assets and liabilities. The name Yahoo came into her mind, and someone stumbled across this passage in its 2012 terms of service: “No right of survivorship and non-transferability. You agree that your Yahoo account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Jonathan Askin

Hugh James—Jonathan Askin

London corporate and commercial team announces partner appointment

Michelman Robinson—Daniel Burbeary

Michelman Robinson—Daniel Burbeary

Firm names partner as London office managing partner

Kingsley Napley—Jonathan Grimes

Kingsley Napley—Jonathan Grimes

Firm appoints new head of criminal litigation team

NEWS
Hugh James has secured 500 places on King’s College London’s new AI Literacy for Law course as part of a major firm-wide push to strengthen its responsible use of generative artificial intelligence
The criminal courts will sit to their maximum capacity next year, after the Lord Chancellor David Lammy lifted the cap on Crown Court sitting days
The Lord Chancellor David Lammy has set out his plans for ‘Blitz courts’, a national listing framework and other elements of the Leveson reforms
A former Commerzbank analyst has been sentenced to eight months in prison for lying during an employment tribunal hearing
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has joined with 60 data protection authorities from around the world to call for ‘urgent regulatory attention’ to the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI)
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