Compliance Statements?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

My brother-in-law works for a mid-sized trucking firm. My mom asked him if they were compliant (bless her heart) and he said: No, and I'm the one who has to fix it and I don't have time. He gets 3-5 letters a week from customers and vendors asking if he's compliant, he says yes and pushes it back through the mail.

My question: Can the big guys get away with this too, or is there some sort of auditing being done?

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), October 23, 1998

Answers

The ultimate audit will be in a court of law. Your brother would be advised to read a weasel worded letter, written by a lawyer.

Such a document would tell him to phrase his letter to indicate that he was aware of the problem and that his company had been working long and hard in order to insure that they would be able to continue the same outstanding level of service that they had been delivering. A completion date of--ahem, how about July 1, 1999? is anticipated.

But, the letter would also note that because of the inter-related chain of events, failure by one of their suppliers or customers might adversely impact their capability to provide seamless service.

In other words,

We know about it

We're working on it

We expect to be completed in time

Don't blame us if something happens.

-- the beagle (legal@eagle.com), October 23, 1998.


Yeah, and I bet you copied that from what somebody in the governemnt said......

Margie, the bigger the "guy" the bigger the lie has been. I think that trend will continue, until the biggest guy of all gets caught with his pants down....

Ooops, already happened.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 23, 1998.


Despite what the legal beagle says, a court would probably find little difference between the lie: "Yes, we're compliant" and the other lie "We know all about it. We're working on it." In either case, unless he is making a real effort to fix his Y2K problems, his business may fail, and he may be sued.

-- Mike (gartner@execpc.com), October 23, 1998.

A little perspective here: The lawyers have anticipated (a widely reported value of) 1.1 *trillion* in legal fees. Oh boy! Now, if lawyers collect, say, an average of 1/3 of the settlement as their fee, we're talking about a third of the current GNP that everyone is paying everyone else because of y2k breakdowns. Right. If the breakdowns reach this magnitude, 3 trillion dollars may well exceed the *entire* GNP. NOT going to happen.

Your brother-in-law is in a bad situation, and is probably in real trouble if he doesn't find a new job PDQ. A mid-sized trucking firm has assigned *one* part-time person to 'fix' this, and given it a low priority even for him? Does he even have time to estimate the degree or nature of the noncompliance? If he has enough imformation to know it's minor (always possible) maybe later when priorities change he (and others) can do something useful. If not, time to bail.

Audits seem to come in two flavors: serious (we don't have a testbed, and if you auditors do, PLEASE help us with our testing), and CYA (a certificate might be handy, so bring in some fly-by-night outfit, baffle 'em with BS and get that paper). Both are voluntary, and both are rare.

In truth, I'd *love* to see a bunch of lawsuits. This would mean that the government and the courts are still working, and the targets of these lawsuits remain going concerns and worth suing. If we lose power and/or communications and/or banking, lawsuits are irrelevant and *so is trucking*!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 24, 1998.


The ultimate audit...I love it! And the ultimate irony will be AFTER all the computer-dependent court systems cease to exist and nobody or their brother can scream "Lawsuit!" any more.

A Compliance statement and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee,..if you want latte you'll need five bucks,...for now. You'll need more federal reserve units in a number of months.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), October 24, 1998.



Moderation questions? read the FAQ