New Glenn West Article on the “No Recourse Against Others” Clause

Readers of this blog will be familiar with Glenn West and his articles on extra-contractual liability (click here for a copy) and on consequential damages (click here for a copy). You may recall that Glenn is one of my co-presenters in Koncision’s webcast “Drafting and Reviewing Confidentiality Agreements.”

Well, The Business Lawyer has just published another Glenn article (with co-author Natalie Smeltzer), Protecting the Integrity of the Entity-Specific Contract: The “No Recourse Against Others” Clause—Missing or Ineffective Boilerplate? You can be sure that it represents the definitive treatment of the subject. Go here for a PDF copy.

The one part of Glenn’s articles that might benefit from further attention is the proposed contract language. Glenn, have your people call my people!

Here’s the abstract of the new article:

When business lawyers form corporations and other limited-liability entities to be the specified contracting party to a written agreement, they generally assume that the contracting entity’s parent and affiliates will be insulated from the obligations and liabilities incurred in connection with that entity-specific contract. Too often, this assumption, which is based solely upon the protection provided through the modern limited-liability regimes created by various state statutes, is challenged by equitable and tort-based theories asserted by a disappointed counterparty seeking recourse from persons with whom it did not contract. These challenges are successful more often than is sometimes thought. The authors believe that the owners, directors, and officers of limited-liability entities would obtain substantial benefit from supplementing the limited liability granted through statute with a specifically negotiated contractual provision. While the “no recourse against others” clause commonly found in corporate indentures is a helpful starting point for developing such a provision, this clause may not be as effective against the modern threats to limited liability as some may think because it was originally created to guard against threats that have been largely assigned to the history vaults. Accordingly, consistent with the private equity industry’s modern adaptation of this clause in the context of the documentation of mergers and acquisitions, the authors propose an overhaul of the historical “no recourse against others” clause and an expansion of the use of this updated and modernized clause to all entity-specific contracts.

About the author

Ken Adams is the leading authority on how to say clearly whatever you want to say in a contract. He’s author of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, and he offers online and in-person training around the world. He’s also chief content officer of LegalSifter, Inc., a company that combines artificial intelligence and expertise to assist with review of contracts.

1 thought on “New Glenn West Article on the “No Recourse Against Others” Clause”

  1. Ken,
     
    I invite you and your readers to take a hand at proposing a shortened and more user-friendly version of the “no recourse” provision I included in the article.  I am not happy with the length and redundancy of the clause either.  My goal was to alert the bar to the dangers of over-reliance upon the statutory liability seal and the failure of standard “no recourse” provisions in current use to provide sufficient protection against the modern threats to limited liability.  My proposed clause was deliberately over-inclusive to force business lawyers to think about this issue afresh. If we can use your blog to advance that thinking, improve the proposed provision and promote some general acceptance of that improved provision, I will have accomplished my objective.
     
    Glenn 

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.