What is the Contract Board?
The Contract Board supervises the professional content of the contract portfolios and monitors their accuracy and topicality. It does this based on the idea that smart contracting is intended to adequately support legal operations and from the perspective of business activities. She continuously translates changing legislation, regulations and jurisprudence into the contract portfolios.
The Contract Board has developed contract portfolios for the various business activities. The contracts and scenarios from the contract portfolios are aimed at effectively organizing the corporate legal function.
At the request of companies, we make the contract portfolios company-specific so that they match the needs of companies. The company-specific contracts then end up in the company-specific contract library, which is available on the MYOBI trust network.
By applying smart contracting using the contracts from the contract portfolios, the scripts and the libraries, a company can effectively organise its business activities, in particular its corporate legal function, also known as legal operations.
The Contract Board is staffed by a group of legal professionals and lawyers.
Mr. A.J. Duthler has been a member of the Contract Board since April 1, 2020.
Managing contract portfolios
Contract portfolios relate totypes of business activities (e.g. sales, personnel management or purchasing) and types of businesses(e.g. trading companies, service providers or government).
Professionals of the Contract Board manage the portfolios based on legislation and the interpretation of legislation. The effective organisation of business activities is always a central theme. Another central theme is the effective organisation of legal operations.
Changes in legislation and regulations can have an impact on contract portfolios, company-specific libraries and agreements already concluded by companies and institutions. When making changes to the contract portfolios, the professionals take the life cycle of contracts into account (contract life cycle) and the Contract Board informs and advises companies to take appropriate measures (for example, adjusting contracts or making additional agreements). Informing and advising companies takes place using the “impacted contract” functionality. This functionality on the MYOBI trust network is part of the smart contracting application.
Company Specific Library
Doing business is reflected in agreements in which one partner delivers something and the other partner pays for it. The logistics of delivery and payment can be found in agreements. The government is increasingly interfering in business between partners. For example, there is the tax authorities, which wish to receive VAT on every transaction. In addition, there are and will be more and more supervisors who, for example, want to be able to establish that personal data is effectively protected. By organising the corporate legal function with company-specific libraries, companies are able to demonstrate compliance with laws and regulations. This reduces the risks of fines or other enforcement actions.
The company-specific library consists of scenarios and contract items for each business activity.
A company can be innovative with its company-specific library and “outmatch” competitors. With the help of a company-specific library, a company can also organise its business activities effectively. We might classify the company-specific library as a trade secret.
Duthler Associates professionals can manage your company-specific library based on the direction of the Contract Board and the strategic direction of business leaders and management.
Legal operations
All companies and institutions have a legal operations. Sometimes the position is appointed and staffed, but often someone in the organization does it “on the sidelines”. As business activities increase and government gets more and more involved in the business of partners, liability and expense risks for the company increase. Organising legal operations can offer a solution.
Legal operation supports the entire agreement lifecycle. This involves making preparations, contracting and contract management.
- During the preparation, the parties must know what the contract objectives are and with whom agreements must be made. With well-thought-out scripts and contract items, management can avoid liability and cost risks and effectively organize operational processes;
- During the contracting process, parties follow the steps in the script, assess contract items and adjust them. It is essential that the intentions of partners are irrefutably recorded during the contracting process. The pre-contractual phase is decisive for the explanation of the agreements made; and
- Contract management is aimed at organising compliance with contractual obligations.
The Contract Board monitors and guarantees the quality of the contract portfolios. The company-specific contract library that can be built up with this then forms the heart of legal operations. In this way, legal operations can be organised very effectively.
Organise business activities more effectively
Organising legal operations more effectively should lead to more effective organisation of business activities. In other words, there must be a value proposition and a business case for the business organisation. We are aware of this principle. Duthler Associates uses the same principle for its own business operations.
We organise legal operations using the smart contracting application for our own business activities and experience the following benefits and value proposition:
- Effective and adequate purchasing processes and purchasing contracts;
- Effective personnel management; and
- Use of clearly worded engagements to perform assessments, implementations, and management of libraries and legal operations;
In business economics terms, an effectively organised legal operations leads to more and more satisfied customers and more effective operational business processes. In addition, liability and cost risks are reduced.
