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Report on Supply Chain Compliance: Mike Gehrt Discusses Force Majeure Provisions and COVID-19

May. 04, 2020

Report on Supply Chain Compliance: Volume 3, Number 8.  April 16, 2020.

Force Majeure Provisions in Light of COVID-19.

By Karen Kroll. Originally published May 4, 2020, at https://bit.ly/3c3jfCP

With the COVID-19 pandemic prompting myriad business closures, many suppliers and their customers are reviewing the force majeure provisions within their supply chain contracts. Force majeure, which translates to “superior force,” recognizes that an event that’s outside anyone’s control and unavoidable—such as a natural disaster—can make it impossible for a party to fulfill its obligations under a contract. Perhaps not surprisingly, the clause is sometimes called an “act of God” provision.

According to a recent article in The National Law Review, written by attorneys with Greenberg Traurig LLP,[1] “a force majeure clause is a contract provision that excuses a party’s performance of its obligations under a contract when certain circumstances beyond their control arise, making performance inadvisable, commercially impracticable, illegal, or impossible.”

While not all contracts between suppliers and their customers include these provisions, they “are common enough to warrant the attention of every prudent supplier’s or customer’s lawyer,” said Peter Biagetti, attorney with Mintz in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

 

Michael S. Gehrt
Partner
Named a 2020 Rising Star by Law360

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