New Terms for Lexis Library
We have over the last few years been looking at the library terms looking for ways to improve them and make them easier for you to use. New Terms and Conditions for Lexis Library launch today, 2 May 2017. They represent a number of improvements in key areas designed to add clarity, reduce confusion and increase legal certainty for both you and our customers.
What do I need to do?
Nothing new at all! The contracts will be changed on 1 May 2017 but if for any reason an old one is still showing please don’t use it!
Apart from that, it is business as usual. Every time you are selling to a new customer or renewing an existing customer you should:
download a copy of the terms from the UK Lextalk site;
complete all the grey boxes; and
send it over to the customer and that should be it!
Note: Please don’t send out blank order forms as this can sometimes cause confusion. If the customer does request amendments you should contact legal as soon as possible but please remember to build in time at both ends to allow everyone time to advise as needed.
In terms of change request and SLT approval this all remains the same. The key thing to remember here is to get your approvals from the SLT in advance for all changes to commercial terms before sending a request to legal to have changes made. This saves everybody time in the long run!
What has changed?
The Order Form might look a little different but it is largely the same content. We ask for a company number (or partnership number) now. This can be checked for free at Companies House. This helps us to identify accounts when things go wrong.
Timing and pricing
We have added more flexibility into the option to set the start and end date of the contract and we have given you the option to break the price down by product for up to five years at a time. You don’t have to do this though and you are free to price as a package if you prefer!
FAQs
We have taken the opportunity to add in some answers to common questions where we have always had a stock response. A good example of this is clause 2.2 – we now explicitly call out that incidental and short term travel is permitted. We’ve looked at a lot of contracts to make these improvements and the aim is to make the overall experience better for both you and the customer. That is why it is a little longer.
New sections
Lexis PSL now has its own section in the standard contract and it reflects the improved functionality that is constantly being added into the platform.
Data Analytics also has its own section. This is designed to remove the need to get any additional consents from customers to provide the detailed analytics that they want. It will only work for new contracts signed after 2 May 2017 and the clause will need to remain in place to be effective (i.e. not negotiated out by a customer) but it should answer a lot of the questions that you get asked, before you get asked them.
We’ve changed the way the contract auto-renews, but not completely. The new contract now auto-renews for additional one year periods only because we got rid of PPP - nobody really liked it anyway.
What has stayed the same?
Auto-uplift
The contracts now renew for periods of one year at a time but the 15% auto-uplift is still there. This is designed to encourage customers to come to the table and renegotiate a better rate for them. If they don’t, the data we have collected shows that this is still an effective tool that you can rely on.
Ending the contract
The time for a customer to end a contract has also remained the same. When you agree a term with a customer (between one and hopefully (!) five years) that is the initial term. Customers are locked in for that initial term that you have both agreed. They can end the contract at the end of that initial period as long as they give more than 90 days’ notice in writing. This is the same as before. If they miss this 90 day time period then a renewal term is activated of one year. This same 90 day time period will apply to any renewal term.
Nearly everything else is the same as it was before but it might have been improved or tweaked in some way. If you spot any changes you want to talk about then please just ask a member of the legal team!
Can I give feedback?
Of course and please do! If there are some teething problems with the order form then we will be as responsive as we can to help work through those.
On a more general level, the team can talk through the reasons why the terms are the way they are and we would be more than happy to talk to anyone about it!