5 ms·

By "a bunch of paper manipulation" you must mean a legally binding contract? If something is specified in the contract, I find it difficult to see how this can

by crc32 16y ago

By "a bunch of paper manipulation" you must mean a legally binding contract? If something is specified in the contract, I find it difficult to see how this can be called "trickery", it is a magician telling you in advance that he may hide the coin up his sleeve.

cia_plant 16y ago
By 'a bunch of paper manipulation' he probably means some of the practices mentioned elsewhere in this discussion - such as hiring someone whose full-time job is to find loopholes and contradictions within complex contracts, so they can charge more money; or grossly misrepresenting the likely cost of a project, with full intention of raising the price regardless of ultimate conditions. The misrepresentation in the latter case is making it out that a clause applies to exceptional circumstances, when its actual purpose is to pad the contract under any circumstances. You seem to think that each party should simply expect the other party to try to get as much from them as possible, through whatever misrepresentations and legal strategems they can get away with. Maybe this is normal in the areas where you work - I guess Jacques and I both come from backgrounds where this would be abnormal, and in fact disgusting behavior.
- notauser 16y ago
  The government also has people who audit contracts looking for places where the contractor has committed a technical breach. In my experience breaches on either side tend to get netted off fairly amicably. I might swap you a change request that you want for signing off a performance deviation I can't avoid, that kind of thing. However the contract still serves a purpose - it provides the ground rules for that kind of trade. It does sometimes happen in bad faith (usually when the contract has a long and sticky history already) but most of the time it's just a more formalized version of goodwill. And that formality is necessary when you are talking about millions of dollars per change.
- crc32 16y ago
  IANAL but "misrepresentating" has a specific meaning in law so that to do so would render a contract void. I do not "expect the other party to try to get as much from them as possible", I just expect that should one party fulfill the obligations of the contract, that the other party fulfills theirs. The point of having a contract is that I can do business without invoking any kind of ethics or morality based on a background I presume to share with another party, or my own personal definition of "misrepresentation". Or at least, I can advise the other party of my definitions and expectations in advance of them entering into the contract of their own free will.
pyre 16y ago
See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379829 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379829
ajuc 16y ago
The sad consequence of people choosing option 2 is that legal contracts are hard to understand. For purpose. Whole mafia of lawyers earns big bucks thanks to making these contracts even more convulted. Outsmarting somebody by clever legalese isn't moral in my book.

by crc32 16y ago

cia_plant 16y ago

By 'a bunch of paper manipulation' he probably means some of the practices mentioned elsewhere in this discussion - such as hiring someone whose full-time job is to find loopholes and contradictions within complex contracts, so they can charge more money; or grossly misrepresenting the likely cost of a project, with full intention of raising the price regardless of ultimate conditions. The misrepresentation in the latter case is making it out that a clause applies to exceptional circumstances, when its actual purpose is to pad the contract under any circumstances. You seem to think that each party should simply expect the other party to try to get as much from them as possible, through whatever misrepresentations and legal strategems they can get away with. Maybe this is normal in the areas where you work - I guess Jacques and I both come from backgrounds where this would be abnormal, and in fact disgusting behavior.

notauser 16y ago
The government also has people who audit contracts looking for places where the contractor has committed a technical breach. In my experience breaches on either side tend to get netted off fairly amicably. I might swap you a change request that you want for signing off a performance deviation I can't avoid, that kind of thing. However the contract still serves a purpose - it provides the ground rules for that kind of trade. It does sometimes happen in bad faith (usually when the contract has a long and sticky history already) but most of the time it's just a more formalized version of goodwill. And that formality is necessary when you are talking about millions of dollars per change.
crc32 16y ago
IANAL but "misrepresentating" has a specific meaning in law so that to do so would render a contract void. I do not "expect the other party to try to get as much from them as possible", I just expect that should one party fulfill the obligations of the contract, that the other party fulfills theirs. The point of having a contract is that I can do business without invoking any kind of ethics or morality based on a background I presume to share with another party, or my own personal definition of "misrepresentation". Or at least, I can advise the other party of my definitions and expectations in advance of them entering into the contract of their own free will.

pyre 16y ago

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379829 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379829

ajuc 16y ago

The sad consequence of people choosing option 2 is that legal contracts are hard to understand. For purpose. Whole mafia of lawyers earns big bucks thanks to making these contracts even more convulted. Outsmarting somebody by clever legalese isn't moral in my book.