Q: What do you risk getting when you mix commerce with the Internet?<br>A: A host of possible legal issues.<BR>Proper planning, however, will reduce the legal risk associated with e-commerce pacts and make for a less bumpy ride should the partners decide down the road that they want to go their separate ways.

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Recent developments in e-commerce law and the industry.

The authorities in the European Union (EU) are steadily increasing the amount of regulation over the Internet and aspects of e-commerce in particular. When the sale of pharmaceutical products occurs on the Internet, therefore, a number of regulatory issues need to be borne in mind, and a recent court case has highlighted a number of these issues.

This article is one of a series on using software escrow to protect e-business, a topic that's well discussed in the e-trade business and one that generated a lot of buzz at the recent Computer Law Association conference in Washington, DC.

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Estoppel Certificate Provisions are usually given little, if any, attention during lease negotiations.As long as a lease contains basic language requiring a tenant to provide an estoppel certificate from time to time, most parties to a lease negotiation simply gloss over the provision and move on to weightier issues. In certain situations, particularly where a tenant is the major, if not the only, tenant of a particular real estate project, a landlord seeking to sell or refinance its asset needs to be in the position of requiring the tenant to timely deliver an estoppel that will pass muster with its lender or purchaser (and such purchaser's lender).

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When a landlord or its attorney prepares an initial draft of a lease on the landlord's form, it is expected that the tenant will simply sign the lease (but only if the tenant believes it has no leverage whatsoever), return the lease with handwritten comments, or, if the tenant's comments are extensive and it has taken control of the drafting process, return a black-lined copy of the lease that it has revised.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13224 (the "Order") to combat terrorism. The title of the Order, "Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism" aptly describes the protective measures contemplated by the Order. Among other things, the Order applies to all real estate transactions, including commercial leases. All owners, tenants, guarantors and other parties to lease transactions, as well as their respective agents and affiliates, are obliged to comply with this Order. Given the critically important national interest at stake, as well as the stern penalties that can be encountered for noncompliance, it is essential for all parties involved in real estate transactions to be aware of the Order's requirements and to include compliance measures in all dealings.

Highlights of the latest commercial leasing cases from around the country.