From the monthly archives:

May 2009

Hilarious video – spoofs of customers ‘negotiating’ as seen from the vendor’s perspective

May 31, 2009

Watch this for examples of classic customer negotiating tactics. Examples: Two restaurant diners ‘negotiating’ the price of their meal after they’ve already finished; a video-store customer trying to get a $19.95 DVD but only has $7.95 to spend. (Hat tip: Jeffrey Gordon at Licensing Handbook.)

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Donald Trump’s lawyers learn the hard way: Don’t just switch the names in an old contract form

May 28, 2009

According a quotation in AmLaw Daily, years ago Trump Corporation’s lawyers took one of the company’s lease agreements, changed the names, and used it for a deal in which the company was the tenant instead of its usual position as landlord. Now the landlord is finding that the lease agreement gives it a fair amount [...]

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Maybe startups shouldn’t respond to RFPs

May 11, 2009

At his infoChachkie blog, John Greathouse aka Uncle Saul explains why startup companies often shouldn’t respond to requests for proposal (RFPs). One of his cited reasons was that “[i]n some cases, the vendor of choice may already be selected and the proposal process is entirely perfunctory.” This is generally known as being ‘column fodder.’ If [...]

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Warranties guaranteeing future product performance can add years to the liability period

May 10, 2009

A subtle change in the wording of a product warranty can add years to a customer’s right to sue the vendor for breach of warranty under the Uniform Commercial Code. • Product failure as the breach: Suppose that the vendor warranted that its product would be free from defects for X years after the delivery date. [...]

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Contracts should explain their terms as necessary

May 9, 2009

I couldn’t disagree more strongly with my friend Ken Adams’s comment that, apart from the opening recitals, “in a contract you don’t reason or explain. You just state rules.” That’s way too categorical a statement for my taste. Contracts are read and followed by people, not by computers, and people sometimes need to be persuaded [...]

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Outsourcing contracts: Six suggested clauses

May 9, 2009

In researching something, I happened upon an article in CIO Magazine from March 2007: "Outsourcing Contracts: Clause Control," by Stephanie Overby. The article talks about several clauses that outsourcing customers might want in their service contracts: Benchmarking – the right to renegotiate pricing if a benchmark survey shows that the contract pricing is significantly above [...]

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Responding to customer demands for extended payment terms

May 4, 2009

Sometimes customer will insist on payment terms beyond the normal net 30 days — say, net 45 days plus a 90-day cure period before the vendor can terminate for nonpayment. If the vendor were to agree, the customer would get the benefit of several weeks’ extra float on its money. Jason Anderman raises this issue at [...]

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