Case study: "The Company"

Résumé du document

The dispute exists between our company, named "Company", and our customer named "Buyer", and focuses on delivery of our products "CoolPhone", which were shipped (with a delay) by boat to Miami, but were damaged during transportation. Because of the damage observed, our client would therefore obtain a rebate of $ 10 per device. We have to identify and measure our responsibility in this case, and examine a possible compensation toward "Buyer" if our responsibility is proved. Also, the Buyer wants us to pay a possible compensation for a lawsuit.

Indeed, a Buyer's customer wishes to pursue it, a phone with the logo of Buyer causing him a car accident. So, Buyer wants us to pay the associated costs with the lawsuit, and the damages and interests.

Extraits

[...] Also, the lawyer, as well as the junior associate should provide us some history of their career, in order to know if there are very good and well appreciated by the company, or if they are “common” lawyer, or very bad After these elements, we could sign the retainer agreement, the price (for both the Lawyer and the Junior Associate) seems corrects Fill-in-the-Blank Questions: 1. Because the location in which a dispute is resolved can influence the result, it is important when negotiation a contract to give consideration to a forum selection clause In addition to specifying the location, name three other things a good contract should specify to facilitate the resolution of a dispute: choice of law (jurisdiction), Incoterms and Arbitration Clause (which is an excellent alternative, and often less expensive, to the prosecution) When the parties chose to have a neutral person help them negotiate a resolution of their dispute, this process is known as arbitration True or False: a party can always sue when there is a breach of contract because a breach always results in damages: FALSE Whether a person's negligence will be considered to be the cause of the harm suffered by another depends on whether the harm is included in breach of duty or care, according to reasonable person standard Name two advantages of doing business as a corporation, and name one advantage of doing business as a LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) : 1 (Corporation) – The liabilities of the owners are limited to their amount of capital contributed, and the corporate tax rate are lower than personal tax rate (LLC) – Loss of the company can be transferred on taxes paid by the owners (then, they can reduce the tax they paid) In some jurisdictions, a claim for employment discrimination does not require proof of discriminatory intent where a practice can be shown to have evidences of discriminatory intents A copyright protects art productions; a trademark protects brands; a patent protects innovations Even if the principal has not given his agent actual authority to do something, the principal can be liable to a third party for the acts of his agent under the doctrine of apparent authority base on statements made by the third party Whether a person breached a duty of care is determined by evaluating his or her conduct using the reasonable person standard. [...]

[...] However, even if our society acknowledges having had some delays in manufacturing, due to the complexity of the application (integration of customer's logo), there is no mention of financial compensation in case of delay of manufacturing or delivery. From these observations, Company can not respond favorably to the request of 25% off the original price from the Buyer. According to the Incoterms, even if the Company has set up and paid for the insurance policy for the transportation of the devices until Miami by boat, all the responsibility is up to the Buyer. [...]

[...] In this case, it would be easy to break the contract. If we can not cancel the contract under this clause, then we need to try to renegotiate the contract. Even if a contract is a contract, we should be able to change the terms (maybe not acquire all the shares ) . To simplify the negotiation, we can offer to SmallCo to become one of our preferred partners (instead of becoming one of our subsidiaries) over a period longer than 6 months, as initially planned. [...]

[...] 2nd aspect: Annie's Labor Contract As we saw earlier, Annie has been a full employee (as opposed to contract of independent commercial agent) of the Company for the last 10 years. From this point, we can not break, or cancel, the contract the Company has with her. As a full employee, Annie is protected with several laws, and more especially the laws against the discrimination (race, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual preference, ) We can not fire her, and break the contract, just because we want to do it. Thus paths are available to us. First of all, the most logical decision would be to return to serious misconduct. [...]

[...] About our problem opening subsidiaries abroad, therefore I recommend the Company to create a company as LLC, by choosing the taxation system for Corporation. Then on the outsourcing contract with our Chinese partner, we should definitely choose for the resolution of a conflict, an arbitrator. This would bypass the problems of legal and cultural differences. At last, regarding the retainer agreement, Annette can sign it, if all terms quoted before (related fees, update of the time spent on each case ) are included. [...]