Using Codes of Conduct to Resolve Legal Disputes

• Published in: Computer (Long Beach, Calif.) Vol. 43; no. 4; pp. 29 - 34
• Main Authors: Aiken, Peter, Stanley, Robert M, Billings, Juanita, Anderson, Luke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.04.2010; IEEE Computer Society; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Code standards; Codes; Computer science; control theory; systems; Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface; Computing profession; Conflict management; Data management; Delay; Disputes; Enterprise resource planning; Exact sciences and technology; Expectations; Information technology; Law; Legal; Legal factors; Professional ethics; Software; Software engineering; Standards and best practices; Standards publication; Testing; Legal aspect; Ethics
• ISSN: 0018-9162; 1558-0814
• DOI: 10.1109/MC.2010.116

In the absence of other published standards of care, it is reasonable for contractual parties to rely on an applicable, widely available code of conduct to guide expectations. The authors illustrate the current application of CoCs with a fictional enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation failure that is a compilation of real-life cases. Subject to binding panel arbitration, the plaintiff and defendant in the case presented conflicting interpretations of the same facts: From the plaintiff's perspective, the defendant failed to migrate the ERP system as promised; the defendant countered that defective and poor-quality data delayed the migration. Using the ACM/IEEE-CS CoC as a reference, expert testimony convinced the arbitration panel that the defendant's position was untenable, and the panel accordingly awarded the plaintiff a multimillion-dollar judgment.