What is the role of legal "fine print" in an economic downturn? Is it something to ignore because of the overhead of dealing with it (lawyersCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, negotiations)? Does it go on the backburner because the most important thing now—really, the only thing, for heaven's sake—is landing the project before the other guy does?
　　I'm sure your company has its own answer for that and I am not here to fault it. Managing risk (including legalities) is one of the two or three most important buckets of institutional decisionmaking that every automation enterprise must make. And if your management doesn't have pretty strongly held opinions on those issues, just what is it that they do in those corner offices anyway?
　　But I am here to say (OK, I am here to urge) thoughtful risk managers to consider the following thesis: Some kinds of legalities deserve increased attention in an economic downturn. Why? Because during a recession控制工程网版权所有, project risk is magnified in at least three ways.
　　Risk of insolvent partners
　　Let's face it—not everyone is going to come through this thing alive. Now I can already hear the rationalizations in response: "We can weather this thing. We know what we're doing. I'm confident it's going to be the other company—not us—that ultimately falls down."
　　But does that response really work on automation projects? There are typically several parties involved with legal connections to your company. What happens if one of those "project partners" goes bust? Obviously, such a development could have a cascading negative effect not just on the project as a whole, but on you.
　　How well you do in such a meltdown, in my opinion at least控制工程网版权所有, will depend on whether you gave attention to some very specific fine print:
　　Are payments linked or unlinked? Unfair linkages include "pay when paid" clauses that can penalize your company for upstream problems that are not its fault. One potential upstream problem is an end user or middleman becoming insolvent.
　　Lienswww.cechina.cn, bonds控制工程网版权所有, upstream retainage.