Master Service Agreement Example

In addi­tion to the gen­er­al terms and con­di­tions of sale in com­mer­cial agree­ments, mas­ter ser­vice agree­ments often deal with oth­er impor­tant areas that affect the rela­tion­ship between the cus­tomer and the ser­vice provider. Here are some exam­ples of addi­tion­al issues that are often dis­cussed: here are some exam­ples of IP rights that might need to […]

In addi­tion to the gen­er­al terms and con­di­tions of sale in com­mer­cial agree­ments, mas­ter ser­vice agree­ments often deal with oth­er impor­tant areas that affect the rela­tion­ship between the cus­tomer and the ser­vice provider. Here are some exam­ples of addi­tion­al issues that are often dis­cussed: here are some exam­ples of IP rights that might need to be addressed in a mas­ter ser­vice agree­ment. There are oth­er com­bi­na­tions which are unique for cer­tain Mem­ber States and which are out­side the scope of this Arti­cle. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that, in deal­ing with IP rights, the par­ties must also take into account the need to adapt or extend oth­er areas of the MSA in order to take into account the prob­lems posed by dif­fer­ent types of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty for the trans­ac­tion. These may include rep­re­sen­ta­tion and war­ran­ty cov­er­age, indem­ni­fi­ca­tion and their rela­tion­ship to the over­all risk allo­ca­tion in the MSA. In addi­tion to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and data pro­tec­tion con­di­tions, an MSA may con­tain oth­er restric­tive agree­ments, for exam­ple. B pro­vi­sions which pro­hib­it a client from request­ing or recruit­ing staff from a ser­vice provider. These pro­vi­sions are some­times rec­i­p­ro­cal and, in some cas­es, the par­ties nego­ti­ate a struc­ture allow­ing a client to hire the employ­ee of a ser­vice provider in return for the pay­ment of a fee. Ser­vice providers may also want a clear expla­na­tion that they are free to pro­vide ser­vices and ser­vices to third par­ties, and cus­tomers often need this to demon­strate that this capa­bil­i­ty is sub­ject to the terms of the MSA, includ­ing its pri­va­cy and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rules. There are sit­u­a­tions where cus­tomers want more exclu­siv­i­ty and restric­tions for a ser­vice provider‘s future activities.

Although they are beyond the scope of this arti­cle, these are often best per­ceived and nego­ti­at­ed ear­ly in the process, as ser­vice providers and clients often have very dif­fer­ent views on this sub­ject. This is one of the main advan­tages of this mod­el. The frame­work ser­vice con­tract is nego­ti­at­ed only once and remains in force for a long time, while the spec­i­fi­ca­tions can be devel­oped and exe­cut­ed quick­ly accord­ing to the spe­cif­ic needs of the cus­tomer. This struc­ture saves a lot of time and costs. The spec­i­fi­ca­tions refer to the frame­work con­tract and con­tain pro­vi­sions indi­cat­ing that the con­di­tions of the MSA gov­ern the spec­i­fi­ca­tions. Many com­pa­nies man­age mul­ti­ple ver­sions of a mas­tery con­tract tem­plate that they use in dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios that they fre­quent­ly encounter. For exam­ple, for some tech­nol­o­gy trans­ac­tions, the par­ties enter into a sep­a­rate tech­nol­o­gy licens­ing agree­ment deal­ing with tech­nol­o­gy licens­ing, and then a mas­ter-ser­vice agree­ment to process all relat­ed ser­vices. If there are relat­ed agree­ments with your MSA, you must ensure that the entire struc­ture coop­er­ates and that con­trac­tu­al reme­dies are coordinated.

This is often an impor­tant area of nego­ti­a­tion when mul­ti­ple agree­ments are used. Whichev­er doc­u­ment is first exchanged, eco­nom­ic fac­tors often push the par­ties to impor­tant or pro­tract­ed nego­ti­a­tions. In addi­tion, many ser­vice providers and clients have devel­oped inter­nal poli­cies or SOPs that gov­ern the types of terms they accept in Mas­ter Ser­vice Agree­ments and Dec­la­ra­tions of Work, or cer­tain pro­vi­sions that would require the approval of a com­pa­ny del­e­gate with some degree of author­i­ty. Often, a com­pa­ny has a mod­el frame­work con­tract with a vari­ety of alter­na­tive lan­guages, which allows staff to quick­ly draw up a spe­cif­ic mas­tery con­tract cor­re­spond­ing to the spe­cif­ic nature of the present activ­i­ty. Con­cep­tu­al­ly, the con­cepts them­selves are not often dis­cussed, it is their nature, mag­ni­tude, dol­lar amounts and exclu­sions that are at the heart of the par­ties‘ negotiations.… 

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