An Agreement protects a business relationship, the rights and remedies listed before one embarks on a professional relationship. An agreement creates responsibilities, conditions, etc so as to preserve the rights and obligations of the parties involved. An agreement contains the rights and obligations of each party; the terms and conditions of their respective performance; and what each party will gain from the relationship. An agreement also enunciates remedies in the event that either of the party fails to perform their obligations as expected/required. By clearly defining the terms and conditions of a business relationship and the consequences of a failure to perform in accordance with those terms and conditions, an agreement provides a measure of certainty and can quantify the upside and downside inherent in a business relationship.
Therefore, it is important that the Agreement be drafted in consonance to the laws which are time being in force and that which will be protecting the rights and obligations of the parties involved. It is clear that a written agreement will hold the parties in a business transaction in good stead since their intentions and rights are clearly documented, thus helping to inspire trust in each other, confidence in the transaction as well as building and strengthening their business relationship.
It is pertinent to note that every business transaction is different in several aspects. Therefore, there is no straight jacket formula which fits all. Even while using a different Agreement and an agreement specific to the subject matter, it may still require vetting by a legal professional so as to prevent any mistakes which may make the agreement a namesake. Therefore, for a complete, effective and reliable agreement, the agreements for each business transaction should always be tailored to the essential needs of the parties and the type of relationship contemplated as such. We at Singhwal, provide professional services in augmenting the effectiveness of such agreements by understanding the requirements of the parties, which includes their concerns, needs and draft the agreement accordingly. We do in-depth scoping of what the Agreement is and determine the estimated hours that would be required in drafting the said Agreement. Post the scoping and a detailed understanding of what the requirements of the parties are, we draw up the first draft. The First draft is more often than not, subject to scrutiny by the parties and there are changes required. We provide this draft to the parties and based upon further inputs, further iterations are done.
However, the Agreements may not always be balanced and the placement of the clauses is a lot dependent on the negotiating power of the two parties involved in the transaction. Thus more often than not, the process begins with the initial stage of the talks in a business communication. It is paramount to bring the legal professional fairly early in the process so as to avoid miscommunications or to prevent lengthy processes of the negotiations as sometimes the external legal teams function in isolation and do not focus on the business potential of the deals being negotiated. We at Singhwal by virtue of the diversified education, experience and training provide the services for the Agreements which are legally sound, but at the same time keep your business goals and relationships intact while negotiating and drawing the final Agreement. We understand that sometimes, the agreement is signed and the relationship to begin takes precedence. We also understand that for the same to happen, the communications with the third party with whom the negotiations are occurring need to be in constant motion, which ultimately leads to finalising the Agreements. Therefore, we stay at every step of the way from the initial scoping to drafting to the negotiations and the final signing of the Agreements.
Types of Agreements
We specialise in technology-intensive agreements, which are on the rise due to the ever-changing nature of the business transactions. Simple Service Level Agreements for Mobile App development, for instance, has some technology, Intellectual property and confidentiality based issues which needs to be safeguarded. Certain complex joint venture IP licensing Agreements require further understanding of the laws, consequences of the technology involved, the License Grant clause alongside the IP clauses which are important.
Certain other important legally drafted documents which are required in this day and age are the Website Terms and Conditions or Terms of Use along with the associated privacy policies etc. This has become increasingly important while collecting different types of data and how the data is used when a service offered revolves around that or even in the cases where it is not.
End User License Agreements also called as EULA’s are other technology-related agreements which require careful drafting to bring about the various clauses especially the limitation of liability and the hold harmless clauses. End User License Agreements may also be used by some copyright holders to protect their Intellectual property and in some instances where the law does not extend its protection in the said works, the same may be protected by EULA’s.