Service level agreements – SLAs – fix performance standards for specified services in contracts.
So SLAs are categories of contracts which:
Service level agreements lock in the performance expectations of the customer, in a legally binding agreement.
So a service level is the measure of the standard of performance by which a business must deliver its services to another contracting party.
Heads of Terms, Letters of Intent: they refer to the same thing.
They can abbreviated to “HOTs” and “LOIs”.
In business, they also go by the names of “term sheets”, “memorandum of understanding”, “letters of understanding”, “heads of agreement”, “letters of interest” and “term sheets”. In the construction industry, heads of terms are often wrapped up and packaged as letters of intent or “LOIs” for short.
They’re usually exchanged by the 2 businesses in draft form before they’re finalised – to reach what businesses call “commercial agreement” – to distinguish from the sort of agreement which is legally binding.
Once you have commercial agreement on the Heads of Terms, businesses prepare the formal contract documentation, which will be legally binding when signed.
Here’s how. And when they can become legally binding by accident.
Client lists, research and development, plans and strategies, pricing models, source code, what customers will pay for a product or service, product testing, and a whole host of other information.
It’s all sensitive information. Businesses can’t function without it. It can all be protected by confidential information.
The same principles apply in commercial, employment and non-employment situations with small differences.
It applies to a wide range of information.
That’s regardless of the media that it is recorded. Or whether it is just kept in people’s heads and never written down.
What’s more, confidential information can protect information before other forms of intellectual property come into existence, or never will.
The term “separate legal entity” is a fundamental concept in law that underlies business law and legal liability.
Not getting it right means that you could:
And it’s all avoidable.
Here’s how.