By Christopher Hewitt, Jayne Juvan, and Brian O’Neill

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to have an unprecedented effect on economies and business operations throughout the world. Although disease outbreaks such as Ebola and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have rattled communities and industries in the past, COVID-19 presents economic and transactional challenges on a much larger scale.
• Widespread government-ordered shutdowns, voluntary business closures, and disrupted supply chains will likely impact businesses of all sizes for months to come. These disruptions promise to create difficulties with businesses’ existing contracts, most notably, implicating the force majeure provisions or other common law excuse-of-performance doctrines.
• Companies should review their contract portfolios today – especially vendor and customer agreements – to evaluate the potential risks and opportunities associated with force majeure provisions and common law performance defenses on all future operations.

Read the Client Alert here.