Technology and communications services can carry multi-million dollar exposure. Clear Communications narrowly avoided this ...
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Confidentiality and restraint of trade are two related and important issues that come up time and again in the technology sector ...
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Many agreements set out brief details, with more information to be provided later ...
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Most contracts can be concluded by email: the real issue is the degree of risk involved ...
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International contracts in the technology area are often difficult to handle because it will be too difficult or complicated to get offshore legal advice ...
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This paper deals with the effect of transactions online and liability for online statements ...
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Open source is a burning issue in the industry and has particularly difficult legal issues ...
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Earlier this year porn on Police computers hit the news and caused a media frenzy. However, for all organisations, porn is just one aspect of on-line risk...
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Public sector procurement raises many legal and probity issues ...
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London’s Financial Times of 14 July has an interesting article, “A wider role for in-house lawyers” ...
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The Supreme Court decision revolves around procedural rather than substantive issues and the law described in our earlier paper largely continues to apply ...
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This article outlines some of the principles by which decision makers (usually public sector but sometimes private sector) should make their decisions, using an example from an Electricity decision by the Commerce Commission...
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The UBS (ie: ADSL) draft determination by the Commission is a major milestone for the Internet community. We summarise what it says ...
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The Police problems with on-line porn look set to spread across the public sector and increase focus on the private sector too. This Computerworld Article gives an "executive summary" overview of the issues ...
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Following the last article, here's the detail ...
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In a March 2005 case, an IP pirater got off due to a technicality. But, particularly after the 2003 amendment to the Crimes Act, there are enough ways that those who distribute and use pirated and unlicensed IP, such as software, can be prosecuted ...
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There’s a lot happening under the Telecommunications Act and in the regulatory space that affects Internet and data ...
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Tenders, RFPs and competitive purchasing is a very important part of the IT sector, particularly in dealings with public sector agencies ...
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Indemnities are part of the overall risk allocation matrix and should not be considered in isolation from broader liability and limitation of liability issues ...
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This paper updates our comprehensive IT security summaries in 2003 and 2004, and deals with recent developments ...
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When a vendor selling to multiple customers wants to change its terms, that can be a nightmare (in practice it is largely impossible to get every customer to sign up to new terms) ...
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A 2004 Court of Appeal decision illustrates that it is not always easy for parties to protect confidential information. Nor is it always easy to reduce competition by way of confidential information clauses ...
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Projects often involve subcontracts. A subcontractor can cause loss direct to its head contractor's customer. Can it be liable to the customer directly? We look at this exposure, and the ways of reducing this exposure ...
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In this interview reported in Computerworld, Michael Wigley comments on some of the current issues in respect of IT contracts including new approaches, the importance of the people, and intellectual property ...
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One of the key issues (if not the key issue) in contracts is the limitation of a vendor's liability. While there are limitation of liability clauses, there are other issues as well such as service levels and rebates, indemnities, contractual risk etc ...
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Many independent contractors work in the public and private sectors. Often they come close to employee status. Whether someone is an employee or a contractor is significant ...
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Agreements with web service providers come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from contracts with ISPs through to website hosting, website development, content management services and support agreements ...
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SLAs are an important feature in the IT world. But often they don't meet the needs of providers, customers or both. In this paper we deal with the benefits and pitfalls, and suggest how best to craft them ...
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Computer users face Foot & Mouth risk. Organisations face on-line legal risk in many areas. In this Telecommunications Review article, Michael Wigley identifies the legal risks and answers to those risks ...
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We deal with civil litigation such as damages claims and judicial review, from the perspective of a non-specialist dealing with litigation lawyers. We touch on what to watch out for; how best to work in with and control the litigators; reducing costs ...
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Telecommunications SLAs are an important feature in the IT world. But often they don't meet the needs of providers, customers or both. In this paper we deal with the benefits and pitfalls and suggest how best to craft them ...
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Lawyers knock out their boilerplate. Project managers cobble together their Gantt charts, and the technical people craft beautiful specifications. But does that mean much, compared to what might be the most important issue in any project?
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On 17 August 2004, the High Court in New Zealand decided that the pivotal decision of Australia’s highest Court (the High Court of Australia), in relation to international liability for on‑line defamation, applies in New Zealand ...
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There is plenty of ground for difference of opinion under IT contracts. If things have to go all the way to arbitration, there's lots of delay ...
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Decisions about document management pivot mainly around practical matters, commercial and public sector requirements, audit needs, etc, rather than specific legal requirements ...
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Electronic health records are an important issue in the health sector. Wigley & Company spoke at the NZ Electronic Health Records Summit in Auckland both in 2003 and 2004 and this paper deals with the EHR risks and solutions ...
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Information technology, intellectual property, information in company databases, and availability of computer systems, are increasingly more central and critical to business ...
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In important decisions, the House of Lords and our Court of Appeal have clarified the law relating to privacy and confidentiality ...
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Wigley & Company presented in 2003 and 2004 at the Annual IT Security Summit in Auckland ...
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In March 2004, Wigley & Company presented at the Archives New Zealand Record Keeping Forum, dealing with implications of archiving requirements in an electronic context ...
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Computer security is of course important and the law goes some way to provide remedies against computer crooks and others ...
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The Electronic Transactions Act is a platform for streamlining public sector processes ...
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The ETA, within its scope, provides plenty of opportunity to streamline processes. But application in each instance needs to be carefully considered ...
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In 2003 Wigley & Company spoke at the Bright Star Annual IT Security Summit. This paper deals with developments in relation to computer crimes, confidentiality, employee issues, etc ...
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Part of the open source debate revolves around the SCOs, IBM litigation over Linux ...
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IT contracts are notorious for failure and underperformance. While not many cases go to litigation, it is as well to know what the risks are ...
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An ISP that read its customer's emails ended up in court and the case shows the risks that are faced ...
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Where software is licensed, one of the strategies to minimise the licensee's risk is to have the software held in escrow with a trusted third party ...
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In March 2003 Wigley & Company addressed the Asia Oceania Electronic Marketplace Association on online transactions and security risk ...
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There is a lot of talk about "partnership" between vendors and purchasers and similar closer relationships. We get to the bottom of the issues ...
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Historically, consideration generally had to pass between parties before there could be a binding contract ...
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