The case, heard by Judge Pearce in Manchester, concerned a string of emails in which lawyers for two men involved in a property dispute discussed terms of settlement which included the purchase of the small plot of land in question.

In an email, the lawyer for the land owner accepted terms including a sale price £25,000 below the original asking price. A court hearing was vacated on the assumption that the case had been settled.

However, the land owner later sought to “renege upon” the deal and bring the dispute back to court on the basis that the settlement agreement had not been concluded. The other party then brought proceedings before the High Court to enforce the settlement.

In his ruling, Judge Pearce said the lawyer’s name and contact details, added automatically to the end of the email by his email software, should be treated as “a sufficient act of signing”.

He said the email footer “can only be present because of a conscious decision to insert the contents, albeit that that decision may have been made the subject of a general rule that automatically applied the contents in all cases”.

The sender “is aware that their name is being applied as a footer” and the “presence of the name and contact details is in the conventional style of a signature, at the end of the document”, Judge Pearce found.

He added: “The use of the words ‘many thanks’ before the footer shows an intention to connect the name with the contents of the email.”

For these reasons, the judge said he was satisfied that the lawyer “signed the relevant email on behalf of the defendant”.