Barnacle

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Over time contract templates will inevitably accumulate what I call “barnacles” — ad hoc responses to historic situations, anecdotal reactions to unexpected risks, flannelesque flourishes to placate a truculent, obtuse or just downright stubborn counterparty — no-one likes them, but if your client insists on redundant (or misconceived) terms (“for the avoidance of doubt”; “without limitation”; “because it is our policy to require them” — that kind of thing) for the sort of fellow who prefers a short-term fix over long-term existential satisfaction, the pragmatic response is to agree them and move toward execution.

These barnacles have a habit of finding their way into, and encrusting, negotiation templates. And, as people move on, their original justification — if there even was one — becomes lost to time. The instinct of successive risk controllers, short an option as they are, upon encountering them will be, “I don’t know why that is there, but whoever put it in must have had a reason for doing that, so the safest thing is to leave it there.”

This will lead more complicated templates, longer templates and a proliferation of different templates.

See also

• Over-processing and the creation of waste