Clauses in IT contracts
The clauses that matter in an IT contract (acceptance, service levels, penalties, limitation of liability, intellectual property, reversibility) and the two legal limits of articles 1170 and 1171 of the Civil Code.
- 33 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
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A few cards from the deck
Service level (SLA): what is it?
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A quantified commitment by the provider on the quality of its performance (availability, restoration time), backed by credits or penalties if missed.
A 99.9% monthly rate leaves about 43 minutes of downtime; the contract must say how it is measured, what is excluded (announced maintenance) and what the customer gets if it is missed.
A contract promises 99.9% availability over a 30-day month (720 hours). How much total downtime can the provider have without breaching its commitment?
- About 43 minutes
- About 7 hours
- About 4 minutes
- About 72 minutes
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About 43 minutes
0.1% of 720 hours is 0.72 hours, or 43.2 minutes. Seven hours would match 99%, and about four minutes 99.99%.
A clause that deprives the debtor's … of its substance is deemed … (article 1170 of the Civil Code).
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A clause that deprives the debtor's essential obligation of its substance is deemed unwritten (article 1170 of the Civil Code).
That is why a derisory cap is fragile: a host whose essential obligation is to keep the data cannot escape it by a clause.
Acceptance: what is it?
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The phase where the customer checks that the delivery matches what was ordered before accepting it.
It runs in two stages: a check that it works properly, then a check of regular running in production. Final acceptance usually starts the warranty.