I'm very curious if anyone else has had dealing with this company / group, and if so, is this the kind of standard rate you have been approached with? |
--
To post: mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com
List home: http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku
FAQ: http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku/web
Posters assume all responsibility for their posts; list owners do not
review messages and accept no responsibility for the content of posts.
1. It is quite common for professionals to take responsibility for their
work. This goes without saying for doctors, lawyers, nurses,
car mechanics, etc. Not taking responsibility for your work will put
you on the same level as a secretary who is just typing in another
language.
2. If there is no (written) contract exempting you from liability, you
*are* liable for damages caused by your work product, like it or not.
Friedemann Horn
www.horn-uchida.jp
I would be very surprised if there isn't some language in the contract that exempts your existing other clients from the restrictions of the non-compete clause. |
This contract was from their UK office. The legal significance of the terms
in the British legal system (and all countries whose legal system is based
on the British system) is as follows.
1) The normal standard for professionals is "reasonable skill and care".
Insurance for professionals is called "professional indemnity insurance",
and only covers the responsibility to use reasonable skill and care. A
professional must be proven to be negligent in their work in order to be
liable for damages caused by their work. If a contract requires "fitness of
purpose" then it is outside the scope of professional indemnity insurance,
so no professional would undertake such work.
2) The normal standard for manufacturers, etc., is "fitness for purpose",
for which they require "product liability insurance". It is very rare and
difficult for professionals to get product liability insurance. Conversely,
it is very difficult for manufacturers to get professional indemnity
insurance.
However, if you wanted to be covered for the risks that the Big Word
contract was placing on you, you would need to have both professional
indemnity insurance and product liability insurance. I have never heard of
a professional company with such insurance.
But because of the consequential damages clause, I would certainly want to
be covered by insurance with such a customer.
3) Consequential damages are particularly frightening. They are the damages
al the way down the chain of cause and effect. Here is an extreme example.
I recall that an airliner crash a few decades ago (JAL?) was caused by a
translation error in the maintenance manual. The consequential damages for
that event would include damages for the crashed airliner, the deaths and
injuries of the victims, etc., in other words, several $100 millions. Even
examples that are not extreme as this could easily exceed the total assets
of your average or above average freelance translator. Sometimes I do
translations about environmental pollution. Supposing a specification I
translated had an error, that resulted in millions of dollars of
environmental pollution clean up damage, do I want to be liable for that?
In other words, the contract went way beyond anything that a professional
could accept. Reading the contract I took the view that Big Word were
placing a sword of Damocles over the head of all their freelance
translators. I took the view that I can pick and choose my customers, so I
chose to not work for them.
Regards
Patrick Donelan
Japanese to English Technical Translations,
Quezon City, Philippines
Friedemann Horn
www.horn-uchida.jp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the whole, it seems that there is downward pressure on rates, and the challenge is going to be to find the clients who do care about quality. |