Lately, it seems like we are hearing the following from our banks, utility companies, etc: "We really have WONDERFUL news that we wish we could tell you about our progress with Y2K, but we can't, because of ... THE LAWYERS!" Now, I find this kind of hard to swallow. Imagine that you were the CEO for a chain of fast food restaurants, and it was learned that you had accidentally bought some tainted beef that you were going to serve to your customers. [Special note to "E": please don't take offense at this, this is just an example to get a point across, nothing personal, dude!] Wouldn't you not only make fixing the problem as your first priority, but also make sure that everyone -- your customers, the health inspectors, the media -- was flooded with information to the effect that you were doing all that you could to fix this problem? I mean, the only litigation worries would obviously be if in fact a customer got sick, right? And so even if, in spite of your best efforts, in fact a customer did get sick due to your not fixing the problem completely, surely it would look better in the event of a lawsuit if you could demonstrate that you took every reasonable step humanly possible to try to prevent the problem, right? So, how come with Y2K it seems to be the opposite, due to "THE LAWYERS" (supposedly)???

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), October 17, 1998

Answers

You are an electric utility, you feel that everything is set to go. You tell the world "We are 100% compliant...nothing to fear". 01/01/2000 the lights go out. Kiss your business goodbye. You have lawsuits from every single one of your customers, class action suits the goverment snapping at your heels and so on.

You are an electric utility, you feel that everything is set to go. You tell the world "We feel that we will be compliant in time, but we can't bu sure." 01/01/2000 the lights go out "well we tried our hardest". 01/01/2000 the lights stay on "we worked our damndest and we made it! LET'S PARTY!"

As the owner of the company, which do you go with?

BTW, wouldn't matter if they told you they were compliant, most people would just call it lies.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 18, 1998.

Rick,

You wrote "BTW, wouldn't matter if they told you they were compliant, most people would just call it lies."

You're correct. Because simply saying you're compliant isn't good enough.

Most people would be extactic of they heard the words, "We have been verified and certified 100% compliant. How? We did X amount of testing based upon the agreed upon set standards."

When we, as consumers and citizens, begin to hear of this type of compliancy based upon third party verification we will all share a collective sigh of relief. _______________________________________________________________

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), October 18, 1998.

Michael,

Yes I simplified my comment about compliacency statements. Better your fingers than mine;)

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 18, 1998.

That analogy would be OK if you change it this way: Everyone in the world has tainted beef, and you are trying to 'de-taint' yours and then brag about it.

And if you think that these companies wipe their ass without checking the legal implications first, you're kidding yourself.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), October 18, 1998.

Unka D:

I suspect they check w/ the atty's on the way in first!!

This is exactly what the SEC was trying to avoid about a year ago and again about 3 months ago with their published regs for notification.

Unfortunately, the lawyers are STILL the ones that write ANY regulatory compliance communications.

-- Chuck a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), October 18, 1998.

On this issue, nobody is going to make a statement that makes them hostage to lawyers in the future. Not, of course, unless they are a criminal enterprise planning to disappear with a lot of suckers' funds some time *prior* to Y2K, or maybe an outfit that *knows* it's about to fail and is basically lying so as to keep its highly-paid staff highly-paid for as long as possible.

The best you could hope for from a reputable outfit is something like "We started testing all our systems nn months ago. We have now fixed all the bugs which this testing has showed up to date, and we are looking forwards to 1/1/2000 with confidence".

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), October 20, 1998.