Book contents
- Frontmatter
- General Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- List of Cases
- List of Legislation
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- PART I INTRODUCTORY MATTERS
- PART II CASE STUDIES
- PART III GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
- References
- Appendix I The Editorial Instructions for the National Reporters
- Appendix II The Questionnaire
- Index
Case 6 - Call Centre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- General Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- List of Cases
- List of Legislation
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- PART I INTRODUCTORY MATTERS
- PART II CASE STUDIES
- PART III GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
- References
- Appendix I The Editorial Instructions for the National Reporters
- Appendix II The Questionnaire
- Index
Summary
‘Print Master’ is a large print and fax machine seller. It enters into a five-year outsource contract with ‘Premium Phone Services’ (PPS), which is operating a call centre. Under this agreement, PPS provides to Print Master inbound and outbound call centre services for the purpose of order taking and customer service. This contract also includes a so-called service level agreement, under which PPS is to execute frequent monitoring of the service quality provided by PPS’s call centre agents to Print Master's customers. Clause 16(k) provides: ‘Premium Phone Services will conduct bi-weekly randomly augmented service quality tests and send the results of these tests to Print Master within 24 hours.’ One month after concluding the outsource contract but before either PPS or Print Master have undertaken any performance, PPS transfers its rights in the agreement to another call centre operator, ‘Magnificall’, in response to a downward turn in the market. A month after all parties involved validly documented the transfer and Magnificall started its call centre services, Print Master contacts Magnificall and protests that Print Master only received a report on Magnificall's quality tests twice in the last month. Magnificall dismisses the complaints and argues that under Clause 16(k) it is obliged to conduct quality tests and send these reports only once every two weeks. It refuses to conduct these tests more ofter since that would bring about considerable costs. Print Master contends that ‘bi-weekly’ means twice a week, not once every two weeks. The transfer agreement was silent on this matter. The issue also never came up between Print Master and PPS. In support of its reading of Clause 16(k), Print Master presents evidence at the formation of the outsource agreement, which shows that both Print Master and PPS agreed that that said quality tests would be conducted twice per week.
Assume that Clause 16(k) is ambiguous, and the evidence offered by Print Master indeed indicates without doubt that Print Master and PPS both intended Clause 16(k) to mean that said quality tests would be conducted twice per week.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Interpretation of Commercial Contracts in European Private Law , pp. 287 - 310Publisher: IntersentiaPrint publication year: 2020