Drafting Exclusion & Limitation of Liability Clauses in IT Contracts

Introduction

In this virtual classroom seminar, you will explore the effect of exclusion and limitation of liability causes within IT Contracts.

It is important to be aware of these clauses when drafting, as if an IT contract goes wrong because the technology does not perform as expected, the customer will not want to be unreasonably limited in the amount of compensation they can recover from the IT supplier.

On the other hand, an IT supplier does not want to open themselves up to providing compensation for wide ranging and uncapped losses. The IT supplier will be particularly concerned if the compensation it must pay to the customer is more than the original contract price.

Limitation of liability clauses are often hotly contested, even so, sometimes specific issues and circumstances are not addressed properly in these clauses, or not addressed at all.

Recent case law shows some of these legal gaps and demonstrates to us that in some cases, various drafting issues can invalidate (in whole or part) exclusion and limitation of liability clauses.

This course is based on English law but attendees might find the principles useful when dealing with local laws in the EU.

What You Will Learn

This live broadcast will cover the following:

• What events could lead to losses for the customer and liability for the supplier?
• How much compensation is likely to be payable?
• Are there situations where the customer should insist that there are no caps on the supplier’s liability?
• What is the typical cap on liability or the methodology to come up with a suitable cap?
• Are there any risks in a particular sector that need to be catered for?
• Is it possible to have tiered caps so different caps apply to different types of issue?
• How can customers challenge caps that they have already signed up to?
• How can suppliers ensure that their caps are watertight and will not fail even if challenged?
• How can insurance play a part in the discussions around exclusion and limitation of liability clauses?
• How can other clauses in the contract, apart from the main limitation of liability clause, act as exclusions or limitations of liability for a supplier?
• What are common solutions if the parties are finding it difficult to agree on the exclusions and limitations of liability in a contract?

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.