Ken Gorenberg of Barnes & Thornburg’s Chicago office will be speaking in an upcoming Strafford live webinar, "Drafting Indemnification and Hold Harmless Provisions in Commercial Contracts," scheduled for Wednesday, October 19, 1:00pm-2:30pm EDT. Indemnification and hold harmless provisions are included in most commercial contracts, including sales agreements, leases, lending agreements, software licenses, construction contracts and M&A agreements. These clauses allow parties to contractually allocate risk and reduce liability exposure. Effective indemnification clauses clearly outline risks that are indemnified, exclusions from indemnity, and procedures for making an indemnification claim. When negotiating and drafting indemnification and hold harmless clauses, counsel for contracting parties must anticipate and address potential statutory limitations, as well as enforcement and procedural hurdles. The panel will review these and other key issues:
- How can business counsel best mitigate risk when drafting and negotiating indemnification and hold harmless provisions in commercial contracts?
- How have the courts’ varying interpretations of indemnification provisions impacted parties’ ability to shift liability in commercial contracts?
- What enforceability challenges do parties commonly face when seeking to make an indemnification claim?
