Mythbuster: ‘Entire agreement’ clauses lock out misrepresentation claims
People are often confused about the effect of clauses that say ‘You acknowledge that we have made no other promises or representations to you.’
Often you see such clauses quoted in support of an argument that a claim for misrepresentation cannot succeed where a contract contains this clause.
But that ain’t necessarily so. In fact, it ain’t normally so.
SFoA backgrounder released
Many CSPs are already using a ’Standard Form of Agreement’ but many others don’t … and don’t know what it’s all about.
To demystify the topic, here’s a dowloadable SFoA backgrounder that overviews what they are and why they can improve CSP business processes, with the compliments of CSP Central and Logie-Smith Lanyon Lawyers 
You should also check out this post about complying with the SFoA Summary notification regime.
Why Telstra and Optus need to be concerned about the coming unfair contracts law
Some time this month, Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs Chris Bowen will introduce an ‘unfair contract terms’ Bill into Federal Parliament. Telstra and Optus have both slammed it.
Businesses that contract with Telstra and Optus need to understand why the coming law could give the telco giants such grief.
Dodo’s doh! doh! liability limitation
How simple can Parliament make it ? In certain cases, a service provider cannot limit its liability in any way. Not at all. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
Yet time and again, CSPs pretend (the polite legal word is ‘purport’) to limit liability when they can’t.
Take Dodo’s current standard contract, for instance …
Test yourself: How far back can a telco or ISP back bill ?
How far back can a CSP go in billing charges after the billing period in which they were incurred ?
Clue … there’s a Communications Alliance Code that’s relevant, and a TIO policy.
Mythbuster: A CSP can’t cut service just because a payment is late
A surprising number of people, both service providers and consumers, believe that an overdue payment entitles a CSP to suspend or terminate service.
For consumer and small business contracts, that simply isn’t true. If there’s nothing more to it, the credit management rules in the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code preclude a CSP from immediate action.
Not much commentary required on this one … we’ll let the TCP Code speak for itself.
Mythbuster: A CSP can’t change its contract instantly
Many ISP and telco contracts contain a term to the effect that the service provider can change the contract at will. It’s normally followed up by something like ‘so you must check this T&C page frequently.’
The truth: In consumer and small business contracts, this kind of term isn’t permitted.
Struggling to make sense of Dodo’s liability clauses
Regular readers will know that T&C clauses that (supposedly) limit CSP liability are very important. If you don’t get them right, you can be exposed to unnecessary legal risk.
Worse, you may commit a criminal offence under the Trade Practices Act – of misrepresenting peoples’ legal rights.
Dodo’s most recent brush with the law caused us to take a look at its ‘liability limitation’ clause. All we can say is ‘Wow !’ What planet’s legal system generated this weird stuff ?
CSPs fail simple compliance test
It’s surprising how many service providers trip up on basic compliance requirements. We surveyed 36 Aussie CSPs against a simple benchmark. 21 of them failed.
The smaller the company, the more likely it was to get the requirement wrong. But Adam Internet, Crazy John’s and Soul Mobile all got it wrong, too.
Online trader Best Buy Australia gets trade practices law wrong
Best Buy Australia Pty Ltd caught our attention when it was fined by ACMA for spamming. So we took a look at their T&Cs, just out of interest.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they get the law seriously wrong when it comes to implied warranties and liability.
Here’s what BBA got wrong, and how to avoid the same mistake.