Supreme Court Decisions

Interesting Article
This case arose from a loan of 595,000 baht made by the plaintiff to the defendant under a written loan agreement. The defendant subsequently failed to repay the principal and made only four interest payments. The plaintiff therefore filed an action seeking repayment of the principal and interest in a total amount exceeding 730,000 baht.The defendant relied on a Facebook message sent by the plaintiff as evidence that the plaintiff had already released the defendant from the debt. The message stated: “The entire amount of 670,000 baht does not have to be repaid. I give it all to you. You do not have to send me any interest, so that you will no longer have the burden of this debt.”Although the message did not contain a handwritten signature, the plaintiff admitted that he had actually sent it, and his name appeared in the Facebook system. The Supreme Court therefore held that the message constituted “electronic data” capable of being used as evidence of an intention to “release the debt” under the Electronic Transactions Act B.E. 2544 and satisfied the requirement of written evidence under Section 340 of the Civil and Commercial Code.The Supreme Court therefore reversed the judgment and dismissed the plaintiff’s claim, holding that the debt had been extinguished by the release of debt expressed through Facebook.

Interesting Article
In this case, the plaintiff brought an action seeking repayment of a loan debt of 105,000 baht. The defendant relied on a message sent by the plaintiff through WeChat stating: “You don’t have to pay me back anymore. I’m sorry about what happened, and I still love you.” The Supreme Court held that this constituted a clear expression of intention to release the debt and was “electronic data regarded as writing under the law."Although the message did not expressly specify the amount of the debt, the facts and the plaintiff’s testimony showed that the only debt between the parties was the 105,000-baht loan. Other small amounts of money previously given were regarded as gifts arising from their personal relationship rather than loans.In addition, although the message was sent through WeChat rather than LINE, which the parties had previously used to communicate, the change of communication channel did not affect the reliability of the message because the previous channel was no longer available. Under Sections 7 and 8 of the Electronic Transactions Act, information in electronic form may have the same legal effect as written evidence if it is accessible and its meaning can be demonstrated without alteration.The Supreme Court therefore held that the defendant had been fully released from the debt under Section 340 of the Civil and Commercial Code and reversed the judgment, dismissing the plaintiff’s claim.