{"id":160,"date":"2013-09-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp\/2013\/09\/23\/translator-agency-contract-provisions-borrowed-from-honyaku\/"},"modified":"2013-09-23T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T13:00:00","slug":"translator-agency-contract-provisions-borrowed-from-honyaku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/2013\/09\/23\/translator-agency-contract-provisions-borrowed-from-honyaku\/","title":{"rendered":"Translator-Agency Contract Provisions&#8211;Borrowed from Honyaku"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<ul><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">&#8220;Mark Spahn&#8221; &lt;<a href=\"mailto:markspahn@verizon.net\">markspahn@verizon.net<\/a>&gt;<\/span>&nbsp;Sep 23 03:17AM -0400 <\/p>\n<p>The best relationship between a translator and a translation<br \/>agency is one that minimizes the non-essentials of the<br \/>money-for-translation transaction. But some agencies are<br \/>fond of establishing a legalistic relationship, with a contract<br \/>(&#8220;agreement&#8221; is the euphemism) setting forth what is supposed<br \/>to happen. There is nothing wrong in principle with this,<br \/>but it can be overdone. Consider the following provisions<br \/>of a contract between agency and translator. Commentary<br \/>follows each, in square brackets [&#8230;].<\/p>\n<p>(1) &#8220;Fees may not be disclosed to any party outside this<br \/>agreement.&#8221; This is restated as &#8220;Translator agrees that<br \/>Translator will never disclose to any Company clients<br \/>*or to any third party* [emphasis added] Fees paid to<br \/>Translator by Company.&#8221;<br \/>[Why would the agency want the translator&#8217;s spouse and<br \/>the tax authorities to be kept in the dark about this part<br \/>of the translator&#8217;s income? Isn&#8217;t this illegal?]<\/p>\n<p>(2) &#8220;Governing Law. This Agreement shall be governed<br \/>by and construed in accordance with the laws of [country C].&#8221;<br \/>[What motivates this provision, when the agency is headquartered<br \/>in country A, and the translator lives in country B?]<\/p>\n<p>(3) In a list of what constitutes Confidential Information,<br \/>which must be kept secret, is the unobtrusive phrase<br \/>&#8220;the terms and conditions of this Agreement itself&#8221;.<br \/>[Huh? The contract itself is secret? What would be the<br \/>motivation for this provision? And this presents a logical<br \/>conundrum: How could you ever recruit translators?<br \/>You will have to reveal the entire text of the contract to<br \/>prospective new translators, some of whom will decide not to<br \/>agree to it and will therefore be free to make its text public.]<\/p>\n<p>(4) In an orthodox contract, both parties sign and date it.<br \/>But here the contract is on a password-protected website<br \/>and cannot be downloaded. Instead of a signature, the<br \/>translator is asked to click on an &#8220;I Accept&#8221; button.<br \/>How can this possibly be legally binding? Moreover,<br \/>no company officer signs, or is even named in, this contract,<br \/>or clicks on any &#8220;I Accept&#8221; button. So is this meant to be<br \/>a one-way contract that is binding on one party but not the other?<br \/>[That &#8220;I Accept&#8221; declaration in lieu of a signature is an<br \/>interesting choice of words. It&#8217;s not the bland &#8220;I Agree&#8221;,<br \/>but &#8220;I Accept&#8221;, which calls to mind Billy Graham at a<br \/>revival meeting: Billy says, &#8220;Do you accept Jesus Christ<br \/>as your Lord and Savior?&#8221; The crowd roars as one,<br \/>&#8220;I Accept!&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Until recent days, I have never seen a contract with<br \/>any of these provisions (1) to (4). Have you?<br \/>(Maybe I just lead a sheltered life not to have seen such<br \/>provisions before.)<br \/>Please be assured that there really is a contract with<br \/>these provisions. As Dave Barry would say, I am not<br \/>making this up. (While poring through this contract, which<br \/>I was asked to read carefully before &#8220;I Accept&#8221;ing,<br \/>I jotted down notes on its various provisions. In the<br \/>unlikely event that anyone would like to see those notes<br \/>(8 pages!), just contact me and I can attach the Word file<br \/>to my email reply to you.)<\/p>\n<p>Comments on these translator-agency contract provisions<br \/>are welcome. Have you had any experience with such<br \/>provisions, and how did you handle them?<\/p>\n<p>I have a little theory that explains what the above provisions are<br \/>doing in a contract, but I&#8217;ll keep it &#8220;confidential&#8221; for a few days,<br \/>lest I skew anyone&#8217;s response.<br \/>&#8212; Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Mark Spahn&#8221; &lt;markspahn@verizon.net&gt;&nbsp;Sep 23 03:17AM -0400 The best relationship between a translator and a translationagency is one that minimizes the non-essentials of themoney-for-translation transaction. But some agencies arefond of establishing a legalistic relationship, with a contract(&#8220;agreement&#8221; is the euphemism) setting forth what is supposedto happen. There is nothing wrong in principle with this,but it can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/JLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}