Getting Contracts Reviewed and the Signatory Authority Process

04/05/18

Contributed by Philip Garin

 REMINDER:  The Contract Review Process is a mandatory policy.  All Ithaca College contracts must be reviewed by the Office of General Counsel before they are signed.  The full CONTRACT REVIEW AND APPROVAL POLICY can be found here.

Submit your contracts for review should be submitted through the IC Marketplace in the left-side menu of your MyHome page.  If you are already logged into MyHome, you can access the database directly at www.ithaca.unimarket.com. Please see the Contracts page for more information. 

 IS IT A CONTRACT OR "JUST AN INVOICE"?

1.      Whenever the terms of the contract, order form, or invoice includes legal language such as “terms and conditions”, “indemnification”, “limitation of liability”, “insurance”, “automatic renewal”, etc., please submit it for review. 

or…

2.     Whenever the contract is about something that, in your judgment, SHOULD have additional legal terms, please submite it for review.  This would include, among others, contracts involving renting vehicles or heavy equipmentother higher-risk activitiesintellectual propertyrenting commercial spaceaffiliations with other organizations, or another written agreement with an outside party that is not a straightforward retail purchase or is not covered by the templates on the Contracts website.

This part matters, too.  Please keep on reading...

For those with signatory authority, we’d like to remind you of the purpose for that designation.  Signing authority is automatic for the President and Vice Presidents, but everyone else needs to have the protection of having their delegations documented with the Office of General Counsel.  [Note:  Those with delegated authority do NOT have VP-level authority to delegate further – see the link below for a full description.]  Contracts that are signed by those without such delegation or signed outside the scope of the delegation may make the signer personally liable, putting both the individual and the College at risk.

The full description of the signatory authority process can be found here:  https://www.ithaca.edu/ogc/contracts/signatories/

 

The purpose of these policies/procedures is to avoid contracts that may inadvertently jeopardize the welfare of the College or any of us in the College Community, including from lawsuits that may affect us personally or institutionally. Thank you for working together and helping to protect Ithaca College!

 

Please contact the Phil Garin in the Office of General Counsel at pgarin@ithaca.edu if you have any questions or concerns related to this notice.

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