IT disputes

Acting for a software vendor to pursue its audit rights in respect of various disputes involving strong evidence of software misuse.

We drafted the terms of access for the vendor and engaged with experts to ensure that the evidence of the software misuse was properly and independently captured. We commenced proceedings and, using the threat of injunction, managed to obtain undertakings to prevent further software abuse and to disclose relevant information. This material formed the basis for a settlement shortly thereafter.

Acting for a major manufacturer in respect of a dispute arising from the supplier's failure to deliver software relating to the identification and tracking of inventory.

The supplier had threatened to stop work unless payment was made, which was a serious breach (a renunciation) of the agreement. We helped our client to terminate the agreement for breach and worked with them to negotiate favourable exit terms.

Helping a client that was owed a very large sum of money by its customer, and whose ability to meet its commitments to pay its subcontractors was thereby threatened.

Our client bore the contractual risk of non-performance and its subcontractors were threatening to suspend work. We worked with our client’s finance director and in-house legal team to create a business case to persuade the customer that, by withholding payment, its actions would ultimately be self-defeating.  In parallel, we also prepared formal notifications warning the subcontractors that they were not entitled to suspend performance and to inform the customer that non-payment was a material breach of contract.

We then worked with our client to agree a settlement which changed the scope of the project, and introduced firmer deadlines and payment commitments. Our client obtained the overdue payment and we drafted the settlement terms to define the agreed steps and to settle the outstanding disputes.

Assisting a global client with a failing legacy IT system that did not meet its needs.

Our client's legacy supplier was also in breach of numerous services obligations. The issues arising from the breaches were affecting our client's ability to efficiently run its internal operations. This meant that our client’s subject matter experts were overstretched and preoccupied with the disputes.

Bristows undertook and coordinated a large scale fact-finding exercise across the business in numerous locations (including outside the UK) to gather evidence from the in-house legal team and also from the technical teams and users. To facilitate this process, we put in place automatic systems to assist with efficient document collection and review so that this could be done under pressure and to tight deadlines, without compromising accuracy. 

We created and managed teams to analyse the evidence and use it to formulate claims against the supplier. We then assisted the client in its negotiations and dialogue with the supplier. As a result of our project management, our client was able to redeploy its key staff members to work on the project.  We were able to rapidly build chronologies and factual summaries for the purpose of litigation, running a streamlined, cost-effective process. This enabled our client’s in-house lawyers to focus on our client’s strategic objectives: to manage their internal stakeholders and to focus on the business risks. 

Advising a supplier about the delayed delivery of services under a business process outsourcing (“BPO”) contract.

Despite extensive engagement with our client’s in-house legal team, our client’s customer refused to enter into any change documentation. Therefore, by the time we were instructed, the services did not resemble the contract description and the documents did not fairly reflect the extent of the customer's missed dependencies and changes.

The contract required that, as a next step, the supplier had to invest in several major new initiatives to transform the services. However, until these were delivered, the contract was loss-making, costing the supplier millions of pounds each month.

Bristows helped the supplier’s legal team to identify its most persuasive arguments and to plan a strategy to engage with and confront the customer. This direct and careful approach helped the supplier to bring the disputes to a speedy resolution. Our client was able to agree a settlement and some common objectives with the customer to reduce the scope of the contract and to begin a consensual exit.  As part of this process, we also helped our client to insist on better communication and change management to instil better discipline on the customer during the exit period.