Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

When we represent customers in outsourcing and managed services transactions, we spend a significant amount of time drafting the exhibits for transition, which is typically a major project in and of itself. In order to help clients think about the major components of transition, we often provide the following checklist of common workstreams to facilitate our discussion.

As a follow-up to our recent post on third-party contract due diligence in outsourcing deals, this post focuses on how customers in outsourcing deals handle the disposition of legacy third-party contracts—one of the thorniest and most work-intensive work streams—once diligence has concluded.

The due diligence review of existing third-party contracts is a critical component of any outsourcing deal. For the company that is outsourcing part of its business functions to a third party, reviewing existing third-party contracts for certain key terms is an important part of the outsourcing process.

When an inventor of technology who is also a university employee wants to commercialize university-developed technology, it is customary for the university and the inventor to “spin out” the technology via a license agreement to a newly created company (a licensee company) that sets forth the terms of the license, including any necessary milestones for advancing the technology, restrictions on the use of the technology, and the royalties and other financial terms applicable to the licensing and commercialization of the technology.

In Part 1, we discussed how, despite widespread usage, termination in the event of bankruptcy clauses (“ipso facto” clauses) are generally unenforceable pursuant to the bankruptcy code. In this second part, we discuss why these clauses are still prevalent in commercial transactions and the exceptions that allow for enforceability in certain situations.

Practically all commercial transactions, including licenses, services agreements, and supply agreements, contain a provision that triggers termination rights, without notice, to a party whenever the other party files for bankruptcy or experiences other insolvency-related event.