assignment

In a fun little experiment recently, I set up a question on Quora, “What’s the best anti-assignment provision in a contract ever?”, and invited people to submit clauses for the crowd to vote on.

Of course, asking what’s the best provision ever is a bit of a trick question, because the answer depends on the contract in which it’s to be used. For example, in a short and sweet agreement, you might want to go for minimum viable legal protection instead of a more full provision. Two of the players submitted answers along those lines. Here’s an example, which was submitted by Dana Shultz: “Neither Party may assign any of its rights or obligations under this Agreement without the prior written consent of the other Party.” [click to continue…]

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I’ve written on occasion about the effectiveness of electronic communications to create binding contracts. For example, in Contracts Quiz: Is This Email Settlement Binding? I discuss a recent case in which a court found that an exchange of emails created a binding settlement agreement, and “NO LIMIT” + “Awesome!” = Contract Modification considers a pithy instant message conversation that modified a written contract. Not all electronic communications that purport to have legal consequences are effective, however.

Venkat Balalsubramani wrote about a recent case where an email exchange was held not to create a contract in Email That Says “Done … thanks!” Doesn’t Transfer Copyrights — MVP Entertainment v. Frost. Here’s an excerpt from Venkat’s description of the facts:

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