RE: Fwd: RE: dispute resolution?

["Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@uillinois.edu>]

Gail,

If your comment about "the Purchasing Department making the decision about
jurisdiction" refers to my earlier note, perhaps I should clarify.

In cases like this, our Purchasing people are simply enforcing prior
decisions made by our legal counsel, in interpreting Illinois law as it
applies to public institutions. Our legal counsel says Illinois law
requires the "governing law" to be Illinois law. The Purchasing people
implement the legal decisions by reminding people that Illinois law needs
to prevail in licenses and contracts.

So, the Purchasing people aren't really MAKING decisions on governing law.
They are implementing decisions made earlier by legal counsel.

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: Gail James [mailto:gailo@deakin.edu.au] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 3:19 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: RE: dispute resolution?

I've been following this debate on jurisdiction with interest. Most of the
databases we subscribe to in Australia are from US or Europe and the area
of jurisdiction is an issue with us. The cost to settle a dispute in the
Northern Hemisphere would be seriously high for us, therefore we always
negotiate jurisdiction to Australia and are usually successful.

I'm interested in this last comment about the Purchasing Department making
the decision about jurisdiction these lends more evidence to the fact that
the power to change licences lies with the commercial section of a company
not the legal department.

I think it an interesting idea about third party mediation but doubt this
would work if the licence had a restrictive Limited Liability which
excuses a publisher from any responsibility to resolve any issues a
library might want to pursue via an agreement.

Gail James
Information Resources Licences Manager
Learning Services
Geelong Waterfront Campus
Geelong   Victoria      3217
Telephone : +61 03 5227 8238
Fax : +61 03 5227 8000
Email : gailo@deakin.edu.au