Fwd: RE: dispute resolution?

[jod@georgetown.edu]

Forwarded with Bernie's permission . . .

Jim O'Donnell

***

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From: "Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@uillinois.edu>
To: "'jod@georgetown.edu'" <jod@georgetown.edu>
Subject: RE: dispute resolution?
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 14:02:41 -0500
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I once worked on a standard vendor license agreement that called for an
arbitrator instead of the usual "governing law" provision. But our
Purchasing Division made us change it to indicate that the laws of
Illinois governed any dispute resolution.

-----Original Message-----
From: James J. O'Donnell [mailto:jod@georgetown.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 1:36 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: dispute resolution?

We continue to pursue the issue of access to the L'Annee Philologique
database.  Listmembers will recall that the publisher's insistence on
French jurisdiction for all legal claims is a showstopper for most
American users.

I write to ask views on this possibility:  what would be the possibility
of a contract in which both parties agreed to forego litigation in favor
of an agreed form of dispute resolution?  In other words, both sides agree
to a non-judicial third party mediation, with as ultimate sanction the
agreement to end the contract if no resolution is possible through
mediation.  Given that the size of claims under this particular license is
unlikely to be large (and the number unlikely to exceed zero, as a matter
of fact, but very very unlikely to get out of the single digits), such a
procedure might be entirely satisfactory as far as resolving issues goes.  
Would it succeed in making a license signable by American (and publicly
funded) institutions?

Jim O'Donnell
President-Elect, American Philological Association