The Great Zero Challenge

[Ian Batten]

On 7 Sep 2008, at 21:29, Roland Perry wrote:

> In article <3452E045-84B4-4ABA-A319-4D379CA1E44A@sourcetagged.ian.co.uk 
> >, Ian Mason <ukcrypto@sourcetagged.ian.co.uk> writes
>> I have the appended signature in my armoury for  replies to those  
>> who send such ludicrous legalese.
>
> I have one too - which seeks to illustrate that if you don't  
> understand it, how can you comply?

There's a certain sort of person who thinks they apply a veneer of  
`professionalism' to the proceedings.   They see them on financial and  
legal companies' communications, where they do have some force, and  
assume that anyone can play that game.  But that's because dealings  
with solicitors and FSA-regulated financial companies have, under  
certain well-defined circumstances, an extra wrap of primary  
legislation over and above simple contracts: you can't simply deem  
material `privileged', for example, but a solicitor will know what is  
and isn't, and will know that failing to mark it as such can have  
serious repercussions.

But what a solicitor will also know is that marking as privileged  
material that isn't may also repercussions.  Simply blasting ``this  
may be privileged'' all over your quick note asking who's getting the  
drinks in is a bad idea, because if it all came to court it's  
perfectly reasonable to argue ``well, the solicitor marked as  
privileged things that clearly weren't, such as 'get me a Campari and  
soda if you get there first', so I had no way to know that this other  
thing that was marked privileged actually was''.

The give away is ``what does their letterhead say?''  FSA-regulated  
companies may need to use such statements on email, but they'll be on  
their letterhead, marketing collateral and much else.  If it's not on  
the paper, why is it on the email?

In a previous job, one of our commercial people got an order once  
which was worth, on the face of it, a million pounds or so, but had an  
automatically appended statement that it wasn't to be taken as the  
official position of the company.  He queried it, and was told that it  
should be obvious that an order is an order, and ``everyone'' knows  
that you ignore the things that say they aren't orders.  You do have  
to question the sanity of companies that behave like that.

I have once had a thread of email that was fitted with legal warnings  
correctly.  I _pre_pended to every item in a discussion with  
solicitors and our directors ``prepared in contemplation of legal  
action, legally privileged'' or somesuch.  That's not nonsense: it was  
prepared in contemplation of legal action, and it was legally  
privileged by virtue of being communication with a solicitor in the  
course of the preparation of a legal action.  Had things turned nasty  
and discovery been an issue, the notation would have simplified our  
response.   But that's a special case, and I had legal advice about it  
on a weekly basis.

ian

ian