Is the initialling of an agreement necessary in the context of its legal validity or evidential value? 

In the first place, we are dealing with legal validity. In the Netherlands, freedom of form applies in principle when concluding an agreement. This means that the conclusion of an agreement may also take place in oral or electronic form, for example. This freedom of form applies to the vast majority of agreements. However, there are some specific types of agreements for which the law requires a written document, and in certain cases also a signature, as a formal requirement. Examples are the purchase of a house and the non-competition clause within the employment contract. In addition, a deed of assignment or a deed of transfer of copyright must always be accompanied by a signature. There is no law that requires every page to be provided with a signature or initials. An initials is therefore not a requirement for the legally valid conclusion of a contract. 

Secondly, we have to deal with the evidential value. It has already been explained before that many agreements can be concluded form-free. This does not alter the fact that many organizations choose to (digitally) sign an agreement, while this is not a form requirement. This has everything to do with the evidentiary value. By signing an agreement, the document is given binding evidential value. This means that in the event of a dispute, the judge cannot simply ignore the evidence. The content is assumed to be 'true'. Does the initialling of an agreement add something to the evidentiary value? In the ordinary signing process, in which the document is provided with a 'wet' signature, you could say that it does. After all, such a signing process often involves printing and scanning documents. If a signature is only placed on the last page and it turns out that a page is missing, a discussion can arise about which pages are part of the signed agreement. Providing all pages with an initials can prevent this discussion.

When signing an agreement by means of an advanced electronic signature, this discussion does not play a role. After all, the electronic signature is sealed by means of an electronic certificate and placed over the entire document. Changes in the entire document can thus be detected, even if a page were to be removed from the document. After all, this breaks the seal. Initiating pages when using an advanced electronic signature therefore has no added value in terms of evidential value. The use of the initialling function within the digital signing process therefore has a purely cosmetic function.