RE: Fwd: RE: dispute resolution?

[Gail James <gailo@deakin.edu.au>]

Hi Bernie,

Thanks for the clarification. I always assumed that to be the case, until
I came across Marketing people in a couple of Law publishing companies who
told me that refusal to change some clauses was a 'commercial' decision.  
When I saw your comments, I thought this was more widespread. It is
encouraging to hear that it may only be restricted to a small segment of
publishers. Gail

At 06:26 PM 3/09/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>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