Heavy fine on company owner for sending emoji
Ottawa: In Canada, a company owner had to pay a fine of 170
million rupees for sending an emoji.
According to a foreign news agency, in the province of
Saskatchewan, Canada, a minor confusion caused by a thumbs-up emoji resulted in
a fine of approximately 61,000 on the owner of an agricultural company, which
is more than 170 million Pakistani rupees.
A Canadian court ruled that the thumbs-up image was sufficient
to accept the terms of the contract in business and imposed a fine on the
company owner.
The owner of the agricultural company, Chris Actor, was sent a
picture of a contract to buy flax by a grain buyer, to which Chris replied with
a thumb emoji. However, months later when the delivery time came, the grain
buyer did not get the flax. This led to a dispute between the two parties and
they went to court.
The buyer argued before the judge that the meaning of the emoji
is “OK”, meaning that the terms of the contract are accepted and the deal is
final.
On the other hand, the company owner took the position that he
used the thumb image only to indicate that he had received the message.
A summary of 24 examples of the aforementioned emoji was
presented in court, which was taken into account by the judge, who said that
this emoji generally means agreeing or accepting something.
According to the court, Chris had accepted the terms of the
contract by sending a thumb image, so Chris had fulfilled the need for a
signature with his phone’s thumbs-up emoji.