Modeling directed obligations and permissions in trade contracts

We present definitions for directed obligation and permission in trade procedures and contracts. These definitions are based on deontic logic and action logic. The aim of these definitions is to give better models of directed obligation and permission that enables better modeling of procedures and contracts in (electronic) commerce. We show that these definitions can be used to give a more sophisticated formal framework for representing so called Deontic Deep Structure Models (DDSM) for business procedures. These models can be used to support the electronification of such procedures.