The Great Zero Challenge

[James Cox]

On 7 Sep 2008, at 22:18, Ian Batten wrote:

>
> 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.

i'm fairly sure it's not a certain sort of person, per se, but due to  
fsa/sox regulation that prohibits you from being even 10 feet of  
information which may influence decisions you make. it's CYA in the  
broadest most maligned sense of the word, and yes, it's liberal use  
only further weakens the position (yay us who might have to defend  
against it). That said, since we cannot trust civil servants 'trained'  
in data safety to be aware of how properly to handle data, nor can we  
often trust a waiter to get our order right... what hope have  
conglomerates to believe their employees will remember to attach a  
warning to each email that might be legally privileged?

Ian - you yourself mentioned that you were having to wrap statements  
to prevent prejudicial action - whilst this is useful on a case by  
case basis, could you imagine if, say, Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan had  
all its employees have a lawyer signoff on their email for potential  
confidentiality/compliance issues? Could you imagine any lawyer worth  
her salt who'd willingly be party to that many potential suits??

we spend lots of our time with the lowest common denominator. this is  
one such example. Yes, you and i (and many other people here) know  
that it's a fairly trivial legal position, and one that's not hard to  
overcome - but, in a court of law, the statement "body of evidence" is  
meaningful in this way; it's often the more you have, the stronger  
your case*.

the solution, as ever, is to fire this generation of luddites and hope  
the next one is more carefully aware of such problems. I will,  
however, leave the country just prior - i've no intention to pay their  
pensions. :)

--james

* caveat: if your evidence is weak yet plentiful, then clearly an iron  
clad alibi will prevail - but we're talking about being able to  
supplant real evidence with backup, 'enter the door' type evidence  
such as these signatures.