Headline News Covid demands a contract rethink


Global supply chains were impacted hugely, not just by the outbreak of Covid-19 and the resulting pandem- ic lockdowns, but by the confusion concerning where responsibility lay for delayed, missed and incomplete deliveries.


The problems again illustrate the un- derestimated importance of contract clauses, like ‘force majeure (FM)’, de- signed to address issues arising from unexpected future events beyond the reasonable control of the contracted parties.


Peter Kouwenberg a corporate lawyer at law firm Taylor Walton explains: “Due to the time it typically takes to reach court, it will be a while before we see significant judgments in large FM claims arising from the pandemic.


“However, the Courts have already handed down judgments on injunc- tions related to FM clauses and ac- tions for breach of contract, stating each FM clause should be considered on its own words and in within con- text of the specific circumstances. “This is a clear warning for businesses to ensure their FM clauses are drafted very carefully, especially if they hope to rely on them to defend a breach of contract, whether it is caused by natural disasters, wars or compliance with government restrictions during a pandemic.”


The article will cover:


• Typical force majeure contract in- clusions


Voice and facial analytics win Frost & Sullivan Awards


Based on its recent analysis of the European voice and facial analytics market, Frost & Sullivan has rec- ognised Xdroid Voice Analytics with the 2020 Europe Technology Inno- vation Leadership Award. Xdroid’s portfolio builds upon a powerful lan- guage engine, leveraging deep neural networks (DNN) and machine learn- ing algorithms to process highly ac- curate speech-to-text and keyword recognition that helps operators opti- mise performance. Xdroid attuned its language engine to potential cross- talk, interference, and contact centre agents’ linguistic patterns based on real contact centre inputs. The engine comprises two models: a fully acoustic model that traces silent periods, speaker volume, speech rate, and emotion or speech styles, and a speech-to-text and keyword recogni- tion model that provides highly ac- curate transcriptions. The company’s automated record innovation allows the language engine to capture and analyse portions of a sentence with noticeably improved annotation and speaker separation accuracy. It auto-


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matically reorients its sentence sam- pling if the first few words are unclear or obscured by crosstalk. Rather than purging the entire sentence, it shifts a few words over to the clear portion and establishes the context, produc- ing a viable result in 95% of the cas- es during lab environment training. “Instead of simply transcribing to text, Xdroid built its language en- gine on a DNN base that is the latest generation of machine learning algo- rithms that efficiently use processing power and performance to present real-time


results and suggestions


to agents,” said Arnaud Bossy, Vice President at Frost & Sullivan. “Xdroid offers the technology as an online real-time AgentAssist and an offline VoiceAnalytics. The real-time Agen- tAssist advises agents in the conver- sation with pop-up suggestions and alerts, and automated lookup func- tions to offer quick access to relevant information. It also guides agents to an ideal speech rate and volume and can perform an automated wrap-up to reduce the average handling time significantly. The offline VoiceAna-


lytics optimises hardware usage and provides complex analytics after the event.”


Xdroid features an automated learn- ing and coaching system that includes voice and facial analysis and feed- back. The training solutions leverage Xdroid’s foundational voice analytics engine and layers in facial analytics and processing to detect an agent’s facial and voice elements. It then compares them with ideal respons- es and key performance indicators from tailored variables. The solution operates in more than 20 languages and provides feedback and exercises to train agents to achieve proficien- cy certification. Xdroid solutions have already been successfully deployed for customers throughout Europe, in- cluding major organisations operating in the insurance, telecommunications and utilities industries.


“In addition to offering highly scal- able solutions, Xdroid is


agile and


can tailor deployments to custom- er needs,” noted Nick Baugh, Best Practices Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “The granularity of Xdroid’s


• Context of force majeure clauses to entire contract • How to invoke a force majeure clause effectively


• Alternatives to force majeure in- cluding frustration.


About the author: Peter is an Asso- ciate Solicitor in the Corporate and Commercial department and deals with all types of commercial con- tract including terms and conditions of business, distribution agreements and subcontracting. He also has ex- tensive experience leading mergers and acquisitions, including manage- ment buy outs and multi-million- pound transactions, for a wide range of businesses.


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