Who is the target group and why?
Due to my previous activities, I mainly address the entrepreneurial client base.
Here I would like to focus attention on various practical requirements which are often considered to be of secondary relevance and which can therefore lead to noticeable disadvantages:
Often it is not known or underestimated what added value a legal perspective on processes and contents of the operative daily and project business can have.
In their regular self-assessments questionnaires or audits, customers increasingly demand a statement from their suppliers on how they perceive their social and societal responsibility and how they act in accordance with the law.
The awarding of new business, the increase in the scope of supply or the decision to extend long-term framework agreements is therefore no longer based solely on criteria such as delivery reliability or product quality.
The importance of non-financial declarations is also reflected in various cross-border legislation.
They all have the same problem in common: how can the obligations they contain, which extend to the entire supply-chain, be practically guaranteed?
Anyone who remains silent or without having considered any risks or signs everything without being filtered, may face possible damage to their reputation in addition to official sanctions or liability risks.
For example, it is quite common for a foreign code of conduct to become part of the contract and trigger the same contractual penalty as, for example, a delay in delivery. Often the customer also grants himself a right of termination without notice and without compensation.
So if you sign the other side’s “compliance dictate” unfiltered, you run the risk of losing business.
The value of reliable quotation and order texts as well as the company’s own general terms and conditions is also often underestimated.
In this context, the industry-specific contractual requirements should also be mentioned, which are almost completely removed from fault-based liability of suppliers.
If, for example, there is no synchronization of whether the promises made to the customer are (or can be) passed on to the suppliers at all, recourses for own claims are cut off.
Those who do not check for feasibility and acceptance here or who fail to grasp the meaning due to lack of expertise or experience in practical applicability will be left behind later. Liability risks are therefore neither controllable nor calculable.
Even if you now say: in case of conflict one reaches a commercial agreement anyway, it is ultimately decisive for the amount of exactly this compromise whether one can build up a position at all and above all whether one is able to (re)know it.
This requires the hands-on consultant with an experienced understanding of the overall structure.
Kerstin Frank
Attorney at Law
Siesmayerstraße 4a
60323 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 (0) 69 939 94 282
Mobile: + 49 (0) 151 402 648 50
Fax: +49 (0) 69 939 94 295
kerstin.frank@frankanwalt.de