The COVID19 Generator

 

#breakcoronavirus #nolegalwaffle

When the COVID19 crisis hit, we wanted to give something useful back to the community, using experimental tech and design. It needed to be ramped up quickly, use simple tech, be easily deployable, be easy to use, and above all useful.

We also wanted to do something different to the usual legal articles on force majeure - focussing instead on creating a practical resource to help businesses and lawyers deal with contract issues caused by the crisis.

The context

Much has been written about the need for companies to review and renegotiate their force majeure clauses, in light of the COVID-19 crisis. There are several imperatives:

  • existing templates - many probably don’t cover the situation in an adequate or workable way so need to be updated and improved;

  • new contracts - as well as the need to make sure new contracts deal with this sort of situation adequately, disruption arising from the coronavirus may no longer be considered as force majeure as it is no longer unforeseeable. So new contracts may need specific clauses dealing with the current crisis on top of the usual force majeure clause;

  • non-performance - IACCM reported yesterday that 60% of businesses worldwide are now seeing moderate to severe impact on contract performance - up from 37% two weeks ago. So it’s critical for businesses to really understand their rights and obligations under force majeure, business continuity and related clauses - as customers or suppliers- and to get together to agree how to go forward sensibly.

  • going forward - disruption is increasingly the new normal, so force majeure and related clauses need to be updated not only to deal with the current crisis, but with similar events in the future (including seasonal recurrences and new waves of COVID-19).

The Force Majeure Clause Generator

In light of this, Majoto has created this force majeure clause generator as a free and easily accessible resource, using Coda. This is an attempt to help businesses and their advisers to refresh and renegotiate their force majeure clauses.

This generator is a superlite version of the contract creation and self-serve module of Majoto. A more advanced and customisable version is built in Majoto as well - if you are interested in having a generator that you can customise for your specific needs, or want to learn more about Majoto, get in touch.

Expanded and improved COVID-19 legal tool!

After releasing the force majeure clause generator, we quickly built up the tool to make it a more complete and useful resource for force majeure and related contract issues during the COVID-19 crisis.

In addition to the clause generator, there's now a tool to help frame and negotiate interim COVID-19 arrangements for key contracts. This is critical because in a lot of cases existing contracts don’t cover or don’t provide clear answers for this crisis - so it becomes important for contracting parties to agree new interim arrangements on how they will operate.

What next?

We will continue to build up the tool, including looking at other tech and design options to make it even better and more scaleable.

A fully customisable version?

If you would like a fully editable version, so you can customise and deploy the tool in your organisation or for your clients, please get in touch. We can provide a customisable version within Coda, or for more sophisticated needs, within Majoto. Get in touch if you’re interested.

 
Denis PotemkinComment