Avoid the prefixes bi- and semi- for purposes of references to time—they’re confusing. Bimonthly means “every two months” and semimonthly means “every half-month,” in other words “twice a month.” Biweekly and semiweekly reflect the same distinction. But biannual and semiannual both mean “occurring twice a year,” whereas biennial means “occurring once every two years.” So if someone is under an … Read More
What’s wrong with this picture: “Subsidiary” includes only any company in which the applicable entity, directly or indirectly, has a beneficial ownership interest of greater than 50 percent. Well, includes only equates to means— what includes gives, only takes away. So use instead means.
Reader Steven Sholk of the Gibbons law firm alerted me to the February 6 decision by the Mississippi Supreme Court in Barbour v. Mississippi ex rel. Hood. Click here for a copy of the opinion. Steven had been alerted to this case by Rick Hasen of the Election Law blog. This case involves a squabble between the governor of Mississippi … Read More
Here’s yet another issue regarding the introductory clause that I haven’t previously written about: How, if at all, should you address in the introductory clause the fact that performance under the contract will be by a division of a company? You could ignore it. After all, the company will be on the hook, not the division, which isn’t a separate … Read More
A couple of days ago I received from a reader an email that included the following: I’ve got a question about the use of apostrophes in notice period provisions. I was rather surprised to see that section 8.96 of the MSCD includes apostrophes after the number of days/weeks/months in your example provisions. Shouldn’t such provisions simply refer to “days”, “weeks” … Read More
As I mentioned previously, Alliance Data Systems and Blackstone Group are in litigation over Blackstone’s proposed acquisition of ADS. More specifically, ADS has filed a complaint alleging that Blackstone breached its obligations under the merger agreement by failing to use its “reasonable best efforts” to obtain the approval of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to transfer of … Read More
Quick—what’s the difference between promptly and immediately? I bet that what comes to mind is the notion that immediately requires speedier action that does promptly. Well, if that’s what you thought, you’re in good company. For example, the District Court for the Southern District of New York has said that promptly doesn’t mean immediately, but rather within a reasonable time. … Read More
This post on use of all capitals in contracts—it’s from Legal Frontier, Andrew Mitton’s blog—reminded me of a question that I’ve asked myself occasionally. The Legal Frontier post is about how use of all capitals makes contract text harder to read. That wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who pays the slightest attention to typography, but it bears repeating, … Read More
A few months ago someone at a public company mentioned to me that her department was about to embark on a redraft of their templates. I was familiar with the subject matter, so I knew that the templates must be complex. I recently checked in with her to see how the process was going. In her reply, she mentioned in … Read More
If anyone is wondering why I’ve been devoting time to efforts standards, have a look at this post on DealBook by Steven Davidoff regarding a development in Blackstone Group’s proposed acquisition of Alliance Data Systems. For reasons I discuss in MSCD, in this article, and in last week’s blog post, it would be bizarre for a court to hold that … Read More
