What is Indemnity?

Indemnity is considered to be a contractual agreement between two parties whereby one party agrees to pay for potential losses or damages caused by another party. For example, if you buy car insurance, then the insurance company will indemnify you against certain damages or losses. Indemnification will define who is responsible for the losses and liability will define how much you are responsible? Hence you “limit” the indemnification clause and you “cap” the liability clause.

What are 'back-to-back' contracts?

A back-to-back contract refers to contracts in which the client uses a chain of sub-suppliers or subcontractor(s) who adhere to the original contract terms. The main purpose of these contracts seems to be to insulate the client and also to pass on the risk to their subcontracts (like liabilities and other obligations). The general way seems to be, to have a company with limited liability obligation directly under the client, who then becomes sub-client to the other main contractors. In this way, if some issue arises the main client it is not responsible or liable. Hence when you are signing these contracts you have to be very careful in examining critical terms like liability, payments, termination, rights etc.  

Key issues arise when in the following areas:

• Sub-clients obligation to pay the subcontractor even if the client has not paid them
• Subcontractor’s liability to the clients for their work

APTIV's foray into autonomous driving!

Hyundai Motor Group and APTIV will be setting up a self-driving car venture. Under this arrangement, Hyundai will invest $1.6 Billion in cash and $400 Million in R&D resources, while APTIV will contribute with its autonomous driving technology, its IP and 700 employees in JV. This will be the biggest overseas investment of Hyundai in AD technologies. The new firm is not named till now, will be based in Boston and will be developing and testing Level 4 & 5 autonomous driverless systems, the idea would be to have production-ready autonomous driving platforms available by 2022. Hyundai will aim to commercialize its own autonomous vehicles in 2024. 

How is VISTEON handling COVID-19?

Visteon Corp will further reduce the number of employees at various sites, this is in addition to the cuts announced as part of its restructuring plan in January, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new plan is expected to cost between $11 million to $15 million. The auto parts maker announced a temporary four-month salary reduction program, which includes a 40% reduction in the CEO's salary, the executive committee's salaries will be reduced by 30%, cash compensation for non-employee directors will be lowered by 30% and all other employee salaries will be cut by 20%.