Computer Contracts

 Computing has presented far fewer problems for the law of
contract than it has in other areas of the law such as
intellectual property, discussed in later, and in the criminal
law, which forms the subject matter of later discussion.
 There are a number of reasons for this.
 Contracts set out the agreement between the parties: they set
out the aims of the parties; provide for matters arising while
the contract is running, ways of terminating the contract and
the consequences of termination.
 Where there are gaps in the agreement because the parties
have failed to examine a particular issue, it is a function of
contract law to fill them,
 for example by implying terms; also contract law provides
rules for the termination of the contract if performance
becomes impossible; and sometimes, although fairly rarely, it
sets aside contracts which are too harsh or unacceptable.
Computer Contracts 2
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 There are almost never disputes over contracts which run
perfectly.
 An similarity can be made with a good marriage, where there
is no need for the law to intervene.
 But, if things go wrong, in a contract or in a marriage, the law
provides a framework for the settlement of points of
disagreement, and for the termination of the relationship.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 Contract law since its has handled disputes. An example can
be given of a inception(start) ship chartered to carry a cargo,
where, for instance, the cargo rots before reaching port, or
the ship sinks, or the ship and its cargo are
impounded(restrict) in the course of a war.
 What are the rights and remedies of the parties to the charter
agreement?
 Is there a contract of insurance covering the loss of the goods
or the ship, and is liability for any matter excluded under the
insurance contract, such as loss caused through warfare?
 Agreements for the provision of goods and services etc.
connected with computing present no impossible problems for
a set of laws which has been regulating commercial dealings
and handling disputes for many hundreds of years.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 One noticeable growth area is e-commerce.
 However, again the law is able to cope, sometimes with minor
modifications, e.g. relating to electronic signatures to
documents exchanged over the Net.
 Since the advent of the Internet, the market has globalized to
a far greater extent than ever before, and there is greater
need for international harmonization of laws.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 The EU has therefore been very active in line with its policy of
removing distortions of trade within the internal market and
also in facilitating trade by EU businesses.
 There are therefore directives and proposals for directives on:
1. legal protection for encrypted services in the internal market;
2. electronic signatures;
3. electronic commerce;
4. distance contracts;
5. distance selling of financial services.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 One of the problems with computing contracts is that many
lawyers are still not familiar with the technology.
 But, on the other hand, even fewer computer scientists are
familiar with the law; and as both lawyers and computer
scientists use jargon(special words or expressions used by a
profession or group that are difficult for others to understand.)
known almost only to themselves, the difficulties are
compounded.
 These difficulties are however receding, for more lawyers are
becoming familiar with computing through use of computers at
home and in work; there are more lawyers specializing in this
area of the law; and many books have been written describing
the framework of computer contracts, and providing model
contracts or precedents, which lawyers can adapt to the needs of
their clients.
 Let us hope that more computer scientists will become familiar
with the law.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 Hilary Pearson made a very telling statement when she said
that, while optimists make the best deal makers, pessimists
make the best contract writers.
 When it comes to drafting a contract, lawyers in particular are
born pessimists.
 This often gives rise to frustration on the part of a business
client who is excited by the possibilities of a deal which may
have taken considerable time and effort to negotiate.
 Resolving potential and theoretical points of difficulty may
just be seen as time-wasting by the client.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 It is possible to avoid formal written contracts for the supply of
goods or services, and to work on a basis of oral discussions
only, or on the basis of a set of loosely drafted heads of
agreement, but for the security of all parties to the deal, it is
much better to set out clearly the terms on which each is to
work, and to provide for such matters as the method of payment;
what happens if there is a defect in the goods, software or
services provided.
 It is also advisable to settle the appropriate methods of
terminating the agreement—for instance, the length of notice
required to terminate the agreement; and whether the length of
notice should vary at different times in the course of the
agreement, or on the occurrence of certain events.
 Drafting a document which sets out all of these matters takes
time, but in many cases it is better to pause and think it out in
advance, than it is to face difficulties later, when commercial
and other factors may change and when all may not appear to be
as clear-cut or financially beneficial as was originally thought.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 It is important that a contract is set out in a clear and logical
manner and that it is complete and consistent.
 There should be no ambiguity and the parties to the
agreement should be left in no doubt as to their rights and
duties.
 Ambiguity and doubts can lead to performance which is
viewed as unsatisfactory.
 This can lead to disagreement and the expenditure of time,
effort and therefore money, in resolving the matter.
 This is the last thing that the parties to a commercial
agreement need and want.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 As stated earlier, it is much better to avoid the problems
initially by careful preparation and drafting.
 However, if there is a dispute, and often these are
unavoidable because they are caused by circumstances
beyond the control of the contracting parties, it is again
important that the contract is properly drawn up, for at this
stage it will be interpreted by outsiders,
 For example by lawyers and judges, or maybe by accountants
or a trustee in bankruptcy if one of the parties has become
insolvent; and outsiders, even more than the contracting
parties themselves, will need to be able to predict and
understand the complexity of the deal, and will require clarity
and consistency in the documentation.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 In the course of their work, software engineers are likely to
come across many different types of contract—insurance
contracts, contracts of employment, contracts with hardware
suppliers, consultancy contracts and so on.
 In this lecture we shall concentrate on contracts which are
relevant to the development and supply of software; in
particular, we shall describe in some detail the elements
which go to make up contracts for the supply of software
which is to be custom-built for a client for a fixed price, for
this illustrates most of the issues which are likely to arise in
contracts regarding the provision of software and related
services.
COMPUTER CONTRACTS

 Producing a good contract costs a lot of money; good
commercial lawyers are not cheap.
 For this reason, software suppliers try to use what are known
as standard form contracts, which are used or intended to be
used many times over.
 Such a contract might consist of:
• a short introductory section, which specifies, among other
things, the names of the parties to the contract;
• a set of standard terms and conditions;
• a set of appendices or annexes.
 The standard terms and conditions do not change from one
project to another; they contain references to the annexes,
which contain all the project specific material.
CONTRACTS FOR THE SUPPLY OF CUSTOM-
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE :-
STRUCTURE OF THE CONTRACT

 The first part of the contract is brief; it states that it is an agreement
between the parties whose names and registered addresses are given.
 It is dated and signed by authorized representatives of the parties.
 It often begins with a set of definitions of terms used in the course of
the agreement, set out either in alphabetical order, like a dictionary, or
in the order in which they appear in the rest of the contract.
 These definitions explain precisely what the parties mean by certain
words or phrases. Once the term is defined, its use elsewhere in the
contract should conform only to that definition, thereby ensuring
consistency and avoiding ambiguity.
 Definitions are also useful in cutting down descriptions elsewhere and
avoiding the need to change the standard terms and conditions.
 For example, the definitions section will tell us that Company X Ltd, the
software house, is to be referred to throughout the contract as “The
Company”, and Company Y Ltd, which has commissioned the work, is to
be known throughout as “The Client”.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE :-THE
INTRODUCTORY SECTION

 It is also important that the introductory section states that
the contract consists of the introductory section itself, the
standard terms and conditions, the annexes, together with any
documents listed in the annexes, such as the requirements
specification and nothing else.
 This is to avoid, for example, the situation in which
statements made by concerned salesman while trying to win
the business are claimed by the client to constitute part of
the contract.
 The following subsections discuss the issues which must be
addressed by the standard terms and conditions.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE :-THE
INTRODUCTORY SECTION

 It is clearly necessary that the contract states what is to be
produced. There are usually two levels of reference here: the
standard terms and conditions refer to an annex and the
annex then refers to a separate document which constitutes
the requirements specification.
 It is important that the reference to the requirements
specification identifies that document uniquely; normally this
will mean quoting a date and issue number.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE :-WHAT IS
TO BE PRODUCED

 Software engineers will be familiar with the problems of producing
requirements specifications.
 A specification sets out the detailed requirements of the client. Ideally, the
specification should be complete, consistent and accurate and set out all
that the client wants to be done in the performance of the contract.
 Unfortunately, we know that it is very difficult to achieve this ideal
standard and, even if we succeed, the requirements of the client may
evolve as the contract proceeds, and sometimes the changes may be
substantial.
 How are these changes to be accommodated by a contract which, in a
sense, freezes the requirements of the parties to those at one particular
time by incorporating the original specification into the contract?
 The answer is that the contract should provide a procedure for making
variations to the specification or job description, then follow this through
by providing a method of calculating payment for work done to facilitate
the changes, and also perhaps provide for a variation of the level of
anticipated performance, and maybe also vary the method of acceptance
testing.
 In other words, once again, the contract should anticipate events and
provide an agreed formula for modification.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE :-WHAT IS
TO BE PRODUCED

 Producing software for a client is not, usually, a matter of simply
handing over the text of a program which does what is required.
 It is important, therefore, that the contract states (usually in an
annex) what precisely is to be provided.
 The following is a non-in-depth list of possibilities:
• source code;
• command files for building the executable code from the source
and for installing it;
• documentation of the design and of the code;
• reference manuals, training manuals and operations manuals;
• software tools to help maintain the code;
• user training;
• training for the client’s maintenance staff;
• test data and test results.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE :- WHAT
IS TO BE DELIVERED

 It is important that the contract should also state just what legal
rights are being passed by the software house to the client under
the contract.
 Ownership in physical items such as books, documents or discs
will usually pass from the software house to the client, but other
intangible rights, known as intellectual property rights, present
more problems.
 Intellectual property law forms the subject in coming lecture.
 As we shall see there, software is potentially protectable by a
number of intellectual property rights, such as copyright, design
rights, confidentiality and trade marks.
 It is important for the contract to state precisely who is to own
these rights.
 Do they pass to the client or are they retained by the software
house?
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS

 Let us take copyright as an example.
 Copyright is owned by the author of a work, which in the case of a literary work, or a
computer program which is not computer generated, is the person who creates it.
 All of these technical terms are explained in coming lecture to which reference should
be made.
 But if the person who creates the program is an employee acting in the course of
employment, then under Section 11 of the Copyright, Patents and Designs Act 1988, the
copyright belongs to the employer.
 Therefore, if a software house employs a programmer, copyright in the programs belongs
to the software house.
 On the other hand, if a program is written for a software house by an outside consultant
or independent contractor, who is not one of their employees, Section 11 will not apply,
and, as is explained in later, the consultant owns the copyright. Ownership in copyright
passes only by written assignment or transfer.
 If the consultant owns the copyright, the software house should consider whether it
wants ownership of the copyright either in order to retain it itself, or in order to pass it
on to the client.
 If ownership of the copyright is to pass from the consultant to the software house, a
term to that effect should be inserted into a written contract between the consultant
and the software house.
 An oral agreement to transfer the property right is insufficient.
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS

 The next decision to be taken is whether the copyright in the
program should pass from the software house to the
commissioning client; or whether it should remain with the
software house.
 If ownership of copyright passes to the client it is known as a
sale or assignment and again a written agreement is
necessary.
 Furthermore, the agreement will usually provide that copyright
is only to pass to the client when the final payment has been
made in full.
 If copyright is to remain with the software house and the
client is merely given permission to use the software, this is
known as a licence.
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS

 If a commercial firm commissions a software house to write a program especially for it,
the client will often want exclusivity.
 This can be achieved in a variety of ways.
 Normally the client will want to be the outright owner of the copyright, so that others
can be prevented from using it.
 Another way to achieve exclusivity is to ask for an exclusive licence to use the
copyright, ownership of which remains in the software house.
 If the client has an exclusive licence to use the software, it is the only organization
entitled to use it.
 If the client takes ownership of the software or has an exclusive right to use it, the
software house cannot make money from the software by licensing others to use it.
 The software house must therefore make its entire profit on the work from that
particular deal.
 The cost to the client is therefore at its highest.
 If, however, the software house retains the right to allow others to use it, the costs are
spread more widely and the cost to the commissioning client may be diminished.
 In these cases, ownership in the copyright in the software remains with the software
house and the commissioning client is given a non-exclusive licence.
 The commissioning client may still retain some control over the extent to which the
software is distributed to others by retaining a right to veto the grant of licences to
others.
 Care must, however, be taken as the veto could be used to smother competition and
may fall foul of competition laws.
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS

Where the client is granted a licence, the following matters should be
dealt with in the contract:
 1. duration of the licence—a licence should be for a fixed period; or
there should be some provision for termination, for example by giving
notice, or on the happening of certain events, common terminating
events being death, or insolvency;
 2. the licence agreement should state whether the licensee can assign
or transfer the licence to another. If there is no provision giving the
licensee the power to transfer the licence to another, then the licence
is probably not assignable;
 3. scope of the licence: does the licence cover use on one particular
computer, or can the software be run on other machines.
 If so, is the licence limited to one site? If the client is one of a group of
companies, can others in the group also benefit from the licence?
 4. confidentiality: the licence will often seek to restrain the licensee
from allowing anyone other than company employees to become
familiar with the use of the software.
 This can be an embarrassment for educational establishments who
wish to purchase the software for use by their students.
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS

 If the supplier retains the copyright, major problems can arise
for the client if the supplier goes into liquidation or otherwise
stops to trade.
 The supplier is then no longer able to maintain the software but
the client may be unable to obtain copies of the up-to-date
source listings of the programs and any tools used to construct
them, in order to commission maintenance from a third party.
 One way around this difficulty is for the contract to specify that,
after acceptance, a copy of the listings and documentation is
placed in escrow; this means that the copy is placed in the hands
of a third party (usually a lawyer) to be released to the client if
and when certain defined circumstances arise.
 The escrow copy(Neutral 3rd party source code escrow solutions)
is replaced whenever the software is updated.
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS

 A second area of intellectual property law which should be
considered in a software contract is confidentiality.
 The commissioning client may well have to pass confidential
information about its business operations to the software
house.
 On the other side of the coin, the software house may not
want the client to divulge(disclosure) to others details of the
program content or other information gleaned (obtain) about
its operations by the client.
 It is usual in these circumstances for each party to promise to
maintain the confidentiality of the other’s secrets, and for
express terms to that effect to be included in the contract.
 Confidentiality is discussed in the chapter on intellectual
property rights, to which reference should be made.
CONFIDENTIALITY

 The standard terms and conditions will specify the payment
conditions, that is something along the lines that: Payment
shall become due within thirty days of the date of issue of an
invoice.
 If payment is delayed by more than thirty days from the due
date, the Company shall have the right, at its discretion, to
terminate the contract, or to apply a surcharge at an interest
rate of 2 per cent above the bank base lending rate.
 In practice, such clauses are only brought into effect in
extreme cases, since using them is likely to destroy the
goodwill between supplier and client on which the success of
the project depends.
CONTRACTS FOR THE SUPPLY OF
CUSTOM-BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED
PRICE :- PAYMENT TERMS

 It would be unusual, in a project of any significant length, for
all payment to be delayed until the work is complete and
accepted.
 An annex will usually specify a pattern of payments like the
following:
 1. an initial payment of, say, 15 per cent of the contract value
becomes due on signature of the contract;
 2. further stage payments become due at various points
during the development, bringing the total up to, say, 65 per
cent;
 3. a further 25 per cent becomes due on acceptance of the
software;
 4. the final 10 per cent becomes due at the end of the
warranty period.

 Such a pattern has advantages for the supplier in that it
reduces the financial risk arising from possible insolvency of
the client or from default for other reasons and it reduces
possible cash flow difficulties.
 If the client is not prepared to accept a payment pattern of
this type, the supplier is likely to demand a premium to cover
the increased risk and the costs of financing the
development.
 In negotiating the payment pattern, the supplier will usually
seek to have the stage payments becoming due on fixed
calendar dates while the client will try to have them tied to
the achievement of specific project milestones, e.g. approval
of the design specification.

 It happens not infrequently that progress on the development
of a piece of software is delayed by the failure of the client to
meet obligations on time.
 While the supplier will be expected to use its best endeavours
to rearrange activities so as to avoid wasting effort, this is not
always possible.
 The contract should therefore make provision for payments to
compensate for the wasted effort, incurred, for example, when
the client fails to provide information on a due date or when
changes are requested which result in extra work.
CONTRACTS FOR THE SUPPLY OF CUSTOM-BUILT
SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE:- CALCULATING
PAYMENTS FOR DELAYS AND CHANGES

 The contract must specify the process by which these extra
payments are to be calculated.
 Typically, an annex will include daily charging rates for each
grade of staff employed on the contract and the amount of
extra effort to be paid for will be agreed at progress meetings.

 Delay payments and payments for variations to the original
requirements are, perhaps, the commonest cause of
contractual disputes, not only in software engineering but in
most other contracting industries—the construction industry is
a notorious example.
 One reason for this is that competitive bidding for fixed price
contracts often means that the profit margin on the original
contract is very low so that companies seek to make their
profit on these additional payments.

 The previous subsection dealt with compensation for delays
caused by the client; delays caused by the supplier are
handled differently.
 The normal mechanism used is to include a penalty clause
which provides that the sum payable to the supplier is
reduced by a specified amount for each week that acceptance
of the product is delayed, up to a certain maximum.
 Thus, on a contract of value £1 million, the penalty might be
specified as £5,000 per week up to a maximum of £100,000.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE:- PENALTY
CLAUSES

 Delays in delivering working software are notoriously common; it
might therefore be expected that contracts for the supply of
software would normally include such a penalty clause.
 Paradoxically, such provision is comparatively rare.
 There are three reasons for this:
 • Suppliers are very reluctant to accept penalty clauses and
anything stronger than the example quoted above is likely to
lead to reputable suppliers refusing to bid.
 • If the contract is to include penalty clauses, the bid price is
likely to be increased by at least half the maximum value of the
penalty.
 • If the software is seriously late and penalties approach their
maximum, there is little incentive for the supplier to complete
the work since he will already have received in stage payments
as much as he is going to get.
CLAUSES

 It should be realized that the cost of delays on fixed price
contracts is very high, regardless of penalty payments.
 Every delay eats into the supplier’s profit margin.
 As a result, suppliers are strongly motivated to produce the
software on time and delay is usually the result of genuine
technical difficulties (or incompetence!) rather than lack of
motivation.
CLAUSES

 In almost all cases where work is being carried out for a specific client,
the client will have to fulfil certain obligations if the contract is to be
completed successfully.
 The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of possibilities:
• provide documentation on aspects of the client’s activities or the
environment in which
the system will run;
• provide access to appropriate members of staff;
• provide machine facilities for development and testing;
• provide accommodation, telephone and secretarial facilities for the
company’s staff
when working on the client’s premises;
• provide data communications facilities to the site.
 The general terms and conditions will normally state that a list of
specific obligations and the dates at which they will be required is
given in an annex.
 It will also state that failure to meet these obligations may render the
client liable for delay payments.
PRICE:- OBLIGATIONS OF THE CLIENT

 The supplier is likely to have company standards, methods of
working, quality assurance procedures, etc. and will normally
prefer to use these.
 More sophisticated clients will have their own procedures and
may require that these be adhered to.
 In some cases, the supplier may be required to allow the
client to apply quality control procedures to the project.
 The contract must specify which is to apply.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE:-
STANDARDS AND METHODS OF WORKING

 Regular progress meetings are essential to the successful
completion of a fixed price contract and it is advisable that
standard terms and conditions require them to be held.
 The minutes of progress meetings, duly approved and signed,
should have contractual significance in that they constitute
evidence that milestones have been reached (so that stage
payments become due) and that delay payments have been
agreed.
PROGRESS MEETINGS

 Each party needs to know who, of the other party’s staff, has
day-to-day responsibility for the work and what the limits of
that person’s authority are.
 The standard terms and conditions should therefore require
each party to nominate, in writing, a Project Manager.
 The Project Managers must have at least the authority
necessary to fulfil the obligations which the contract places
on them.
 It is particularly important that the limits of their financial
authority are explicitly stated, i.e. the extent to which they
can authorize changes to the cost of the contract.
BUILT SOFTWARE AT A FIXED PRICE:- PROJECT
MANAGERS

 Acceptance procedures are a critical part of any fixed price
contract for they provide the criteria by which successful
completion of the contract is judged.
 The essence of the acceptance procedure is that the client
should provide a fixed set of acceptance tests and expected
results and that successful performance of these tests shall
constitute acceptance of the system.
 The tests must be provided at or before the start of the
acceptance procedure; within reason, there may be as many
tests as the client wishes but extra tests cannot be added once
the test set has been handed over.
 The purpose of this restriction is to ensure that the acceptance
procedure can be completed in reasonable time.
 Other points to be addressed under this heading include who
shall be present when the tests are carried out and what
happens if the tests are not completed successfully.
ACCEPTANCE PROCEDURE

 Once the product has been accepted, it is common practice to
offer a warranty period of,
 typically, 90 days. Any errors found in the software and
reported within this period will
 be corrected free of charge. This clause is, of course, subject
to negotiation; reducing or
 eliminating the warranty period will reduce the overall cost of
the contract and prolonging the period will increase it.
WARRANTY AND MAINTENANCE

 Once the warranty period is over, the supplier may offer, or the client
demand, that
 maintenance will continue to be available on request. Since such
maintenance is likely to
 involve enhancement of the software rather than simply correction of
faults, the resources
 required are unpredictable—the client almost certainly does not know
what
 enhancements will be required in two years’ time. For this reason, a
fixed price for the
 maintenance will not be appropriate. Maintenance will therefore
usually be charged on a
 time and materials basis; the client may possibly be required to
commit to taking a fixed
 number of days of effort each year in order to compensate the supplier
for the need to
 retain knowledge of the system.
WARRANTY AND MAINTENANCE

 It could happen that, as a result of the client’s instructions,
the supplier is led unwittingly
 to infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party or
that, through carelessness or
 dishonesty, the supplier provides a system which infringes
such rights—perhaps through
 using proprietary software as a component of the system
delivered. For this reason, it is
 advisable to include a clause under which each party
indemnifies the other for liability
 arising from its own faults in this respect.
INDEMNITY

 There are many reasons why it may become necessary to terminate a
contract before it
 has been completed. It is not uncommon, for example, for the client to
be taken over by
 another company which already has a system of the type being
developed, or for a change
 in policy on the part of the client to mean that the system is no longer
relevant to its
 needs. It is essential, therefore, that the contract make provision for
terminating the work
 in an amicable manner. This usually means that the supplier is to be
paid for all the work
 carried out up to the point where the contract is terminated, together
with some
 compensation for the time needed to redeploy staff on other revenue -
earning work. The
 question of ownership of the work so far carried out must also be
addressed.
TERMINATION OF THE CONTRACT

 Court action to resolve a contractual dispute is likely to be
expensive.
 For this reason, it is common practice for contracts to include
a statement that, in the event of a dispute that cannot be
resolved by the parties themselves, they agree to accept the
decision of an independent arbitrator.
 Provision is usually made for the arbitrator to be appointed
either by the President of the British Computer Society or by
the President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
 Both bodies maintain lists of qualified arbitrators who have
the necessary technical understanding.
ARBITRATION

 An arbitration clause will usually state that, if arbitration is
required, it will take place in accordance with the Arbitration
Act 1996.
 This Act of Parliament lays down a set of rules for arbitration
that cover many eventualities and reference to it avoids the
need to spell these out in detail; most of the provisions of the
Act are optional, in the sense that they come into effect only
if the contract contains no alternative provision.
 Some organizations may be unwilling to accept an arbitration
clause because they feel that they are signing away some of
their legal rights.
ARBITRATION

 In lengthy projects or projects where there is a commitment to
long term maintenance, the supplier will wish to ensure
protection against the effects of unpredictable inflation.
 To handle this problem, it is customary to include a clause
which allows charges to be increased in accordance with the
rise in costs.
 The Government publishes several different financial indices;
the Retail Price Index is the most widely known but the most
appropriate one for the purposes of this type of contract is
the Business Costs Index.
 The clause should state how often (once a year, twice a year)
charges can be increased and how the effect on the overall
price is to be calculated.
INFLATION

 Where the supplier and the client have their registered offices
in different legal jurisdictions or performance of the contract
involves more than one jurisdiction, it is necessary to state
under which laws the contract is to be interpreted.
APPLICABLE LAW

 There are four types of contractual arrangement which are
widely used in connection with the provision of software
services:
• contract hire;
• time and materials;
• consultancy;
• fixed price, as described in the previous section.
OTHER TYPES OF SOFTWARE SERVICES
CONTRACT

 Under a contract hire agreement, the supplier agrees to
provide the services of one or more staff to work for the
client; the staff work under the direction of the client and the
supplier’s responsibility is limited to providing suitably
competent people and replacing them if they become
unavailable or are adjudged unsuitable by the client.
 Payment is on the basis of a fixed rate for each man day
worked; the rate depends on the experience and qualifications
of the staff.
 Contract hire is sometimes referred to disparagingly as “body
shopping”.
 Closely related are the freelance agreements under which
individuals sell their own services to clients on a basis similar
to contract hire.
CONTRACT HIRE

 Contract hire agreements are very much simpler than fixed
price contracts because the supplier’s involvement and
responsibility are so much less.
 Issues such as delay payments, acceptance tests and many
others simply do not arise; however, as mentioned earlier,
ownership of intellectual property rights generated in the
course of the work must be addressed.
CONTRACT HIRE

 A time and materials contract (often referred to as a “cost plus”
contract) is somewhere between a contract hire agreement and a
fixed price contract.
 The supplier agrees to undertake the development of the
software in much the same way as in a fixed price contract but
payment is made on the basis of the costs incurred, with labour
charged in the same way as for contract hire.
 The supplier is not committed to completing the work for a fixed
price, although a maximum payment may be fixed beyond which
the project may be reviewed.
 Many of the complications of fixed price contracts still occur with
time and materials contracts—ownership of rights, facilities to be
provided by the client, progress monitoring arrangements, for
instance—but others, such as delay payments and acceptance
testing do not; this is not to say that no acceptance testing is
done, only that it has no contractual significance since nothing
contractual depends on its outcome.
TIME AND MATERIALS

 It may be wondered why any client should prefer a time and materials
contract to a fixed price contract—surely it is better to have a contract
which guarantees performance for a fixed price rather than one in which
the price is indeterminate and there is no guarantee of completion?
 In the first place, it often happens that the work to be carried out is not
sufficiently well specified for any supplier to be prepared to offer a fixed
price; part of the supplier’s task will be to discover what is required and to
specify it in detail.
 Secondly, a supplier always loads a fixed price contract with a contingency
allowance, to allow for the risk that unexpected factors will cause the
project to require more resources than originally estimated. If all goes
well, the supplier makes an extra profit; this is the reward for risk taken.
 By accepting a time and materials contract, this risk and the possibility of
extra profit (in the form of a lower cost) are effectively transferred to the
client, who also avoids the dangers of having to pay excessive sums to
have minor changes incorporated into the specification.
 All this having been said, it remains the case that there is a strong
movement away from time and materials towards fixed price, noticeably in
the defence field.
TIME AND MATERIALS

 The use of consultants is now widespread both in private
industry and in public bodies.
 Consultants are typically used to assess some aspect of an
organization and to make proposals for improvements.
 The end product of a consultancy project is therefore usually a
report or other document.
 Consultancy projects are usually undertaken for a fixed price
but the form of contract is very much simpler than the fixed
price contracts so far described.
CONSULTANCY CONTRACTS

 There are two reasons for the comparative simplicity of
consultancy contracts.
 First, the sums of money are comparatively small and neither
side stands to lose a great deal.
 Second, while it is possible to demonstrate beyond doubt that
a piece of software does not work correctly and, thus, that the
supplier has failed to fulfil the contract, it is not usually
possible to demonstrate unequivocally that a report fails to
fulfil a contract.
 The client has to rely on the desire of the supplier to maintain
a professional reputation and in practice this usually proves
sufficient to ensure that the work is of an acceptable
standard.

 It should be obvious that confidentiality is of particular
importance in consultancy contracts.
 It is also important that the contract refers explicitly to the
terms of reference of the consultancy team and, in practice,
these are perhaps the commonest source of disagreements in
consultancy projects.
 As a result of their initial investigations, the consultants may
discover that they need to consider matters which were
outside their original terms of reference but the client may be
unwilling to let this happen for any one of a number of
possible reasons.

 The law in this area is complex. It is dealt with only briefly
here.
 A fuller discussion is to be found in Reed (ed.): Computer
Law (4th edn.); and in Rowland and Macdonald: Information
Technology Law, both of which are addressed in later
lecture.
LIABILITY FOR DEFECTIVE SOFTWARE

 Firstly we should look at terms implied into a contract by the
law.
 Just which terms are implied will depend on the type of contract
under consideration.
 If it is a contract for the sale of goods, the Sale and Supply of
Goods Act 1994 implies that the goods shall be of satisfactory
quality and fit for their purpose.
 Section 1(2) of the 1994 Act, which amends Section 14 of the
Sale of Goods Act 1979, provides that goods are of satisfactory
quality if they meet the standard that a reasonable person would
regard as satisfactory, taking into account any description of the
goods, the price (if relevant) and all other relevant
circumstances.
 The quality of goods includes their state and condition and the
following (among others) are in appropriate cases aspects of the
quality of the goods:

(a) fitness for all the purposes for which goods of the kind in
question are commonly supplied;
(b) appearance and finish;
(c) freedom from minor defects;
(d) safety;
(e) durability.
There is no breach(violation) of the implied term if a matter
which might make the good unsatisfactory is specifically drawn
to the buyer’s attention before the contract is made.

 A major difficulty is whether software constitutes goods for the
purposes of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the 1994 Act.
 Goods are defined in Section 61 of the 1979 Act in a way which covers
physical (tangible) items such as books, discs and hardware but may
well exclude intangible items such as software .
 However, it is arguable that software on a disc, particularly mass-
produced software, where the value of the software in itself is not too
great per individual disc, might come within the definition of “goods” in
much the same way as does music on a cassette, the images on a
video tape, or the words in a book.
 It has long been recognized that a book, which has some unprinted
pages or contains pages from another book instead of the one
requested, is a defective item of goods.
 By analogy, a defective piece of software might also be caught by the
legislation.
 But while this argument might apply to mass-produced software such
as computer games and common word-processing packages the
position of bespoke software is probably quite different.

 A contract for the supply of bespoke software is more
appropriately classified as a contract for work and materials.
The work, which has gone into producing the software, in the
form of research and development, is the most important
component of the contract.
 Goods (or materials) supplied, such as tapes, discs or
manuals are subsidiary items.
 The distinction between a contract for the sale of goods and
one for work and materials is essentially one of emphasis.
 The classification of customized software might well be quite
difficult.
 However, the legal consequences of the classification are
important, for if the contract is one for work and materials,
the Sale of Goods Act will not apply.

 Instead the contract falls under the Supply of Goods and Services Act
1982, and this Act implies into the contract a term that the software
must have been written with reasonable skill and care.
 This is a notoriously vague notion. Only a moment’s thought will show
that it does not accord a great deal of protection for the commissioning
client.
 It in no way guarantees that the software is “bug-free”; only perhaps
that the number of bugs, or the problems caused by the bugs, is no
more than could reasonably be expected from the reasonable software
house producing bespoke software to those specifications at that time.
 Because of the difficulty in applying this standard, a contract will often
contain an express guarantee, for example to cure defects for a certain
length of time after delivery.
 Guarantee clauses should be carefully drafted for the software house
and carefully construed by the commissioning client, for obviously
much will depend on the precise wording used.

 The foregoing account has considered the liability of a software
house in contract law.
 There are of course other ways in which a software house can be
rendered liable for defective software which causes loss or
damage.
 Example:- the tort of negligence, or the law relating to negligent
misstatement might apply.
 These might cover either physical damage or financial loss,
although it is generally more difficult to recover for financial loss
in negligence than it is to recover for physical damage to the
person or to property.
 Also, it is difficult to prove negligence.
 For this reason, and to conform to an EC Directive, a strict
liability regime for property damage and personal injury was
introduced by the Consumer Protection Act 1987 under which it
is not necessary to prove fault in order to establish liability.
 There are, however, difficulties in applying this Act .

 The aim of a party drafting a contract will be to minimize liability
under the contract, or to exclude it altogether.
 The law is governed by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.
 Briefly, the 1997 Act provides that liability for death or personal
injury can never be excluded.
 Liability for other forms of damage (such as property damage)
can be excluded, but only in so far as it is reasonable to do so.
 Liability under the terms implied under the Sale of Goods Act
1979 (merchantability or fitness for purpose) or under the Supply
of Goods and Services Act 1982 (to use reasonable skill and
care) to which we referred earlier cannot be excluded in a
consumer sale, but in a non-consumer sale they can be excluded
if the exclusion is reasonable.
 In order for the sale to be a consumer sale, the requirements of
Section 12 must be satisfied.
EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY

 This means that the buyer must be a private person; the buyer
must buy from a seller who is acting in the course of a
business; and the goods must be of a type ordinarily supplied
for private use or consumption.
 If I buy a computer game from W.H.Smith to play at home on
my microcomputer, Section 12 is satisfied, and under the
1977 Act the implied terms cannot be excluded.
 However, where the client commissions bespoke software
from a software house in order to use it in the course of
business, this is not a consumer sale, and the implied terms
can be excluded if it is reasonable to do so.
 Reasonableness is ascertained by reference to guidelines laid
down in Schedule 2 to the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

 Matters to which the court would have regard in assessing
whether it is reasonable for a supplier to exclude liability
include:
• the relative bargaining powers of the parties;
• opportunities to contract with others who do not use the
same exclusionary terms;
• whether the customer knew or ought reasonably to have
known of the existence and extent of the term (note here that in
practice contracting parties should always read all contracts
before entering into them and should seek advice on matters
such as the extent of any exclusion clause or clause seeking to
limit liability);
• whether the goods were manufactured, processed or adapted
to the special order of the customer.

 If a standard form contract limits liability in damages to a
fixed or determinable sum, Section 11(4) applies.
 This provides that: Where by reference to a contract term…a
person seeks to restrict liability to a specified sum of money,
and the question arises (under this or under any other Act)
whether the term or notice satisfies the requirement of
reasonableness, regard shall be had in particular…to
(a) the resources which he could expect to have available to him
for the purpose of meeting the liability should it arise; and
(b) how far it was open to him to cover himself by insurance.
STANDARD FORM CONTRACTS AND
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

 Standard form contracts do therefore have their drawbacks.
Unfortunately the Act gives no guidance about when a
contract, which is used several times, becomes “standard
form”.
 It is, however, at least arguable that standard terms offered
by one party to another for purchases over the Internet are
standard form

 There are a number of cases on the Unfair Contract Terms Act and on
the requirement of reasonableness.
 The cases must, however, be treated with caution for the decision in
each turns on its facts and just because one case is decided one way it
does not mean that all others will follow.
 One example is St Albans City and District Council v International
Computers Ltd [1996] 4 All ER 481.
 The facts were that the council had ordered a computer system from
ICL to enable them to compute the Community Charge for the
forthcoming year.
 ICL insisted on using its standard terms and conditions which stated
that its liability “will not exceed the price or charge payable for the
item of Equipment, Program or Service in respect of which liability
arises or £100,000 (whichever is the lesser)…”.
 Errors in the software and incorrect advice from ICL’s project manager
resulted in an overestimate of the population of the area, an
undercharge of residents and a loss to the council of £1.3 million.

 The judge at the initial hearing, Scott Baker J. found that the software
was not fit for the purpose for which it was provided and that ICL’s
project manager had been negligent.
 ICL were therefore in breach of contract.
 As ICL had dealt on the basis of their standard terms and conditions,
Section 3 of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 applied and the clause
limiting liability had to be measured against the requirement of
reasonableness.
 Applying the factors listed in Section 11(4) and Schedule 2 (above), the
judge noted that ICL were a substantial organization with world wide
product liability insurance of £50 million; that all potential suppliers of
the system dealt on similar standard terms; that the council was under
pressure to install the system before the Community Charge was
introduced; that although the council was a business and not a
consumer, that it did not usually operate in the same commercial field
as a normal business and that it would be impractical for it to insure
against commercial risks.

 On balance, the judge found that the clause limiting liability to
£100,000 was not reasonable and was therefore ineffective.
 ICL appealed, but the Court of Appeal agreed with the decision
of Mr Justice Scott Baker.
 However, as stated above, whatever the final outcome in this
case, its value as a precedent will be limited, for each case turns
on its facts.
 It cannot be concluded that henceforth no limitation of liability
clause in a contract for the supply of a computer system will be
valid.
 It does, however, show the pitfalls surrounding contract
negotiation and a need to tailor such clauses to the
circumstances.
 Dogged reliance on standard terms and conditions can prove
expensive.

Computer Contracts

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