The first publicized lawsuit over year 2000 liability has been concluded with a settlement of $260,000 being paid to a supermarket chain by a systems vendor. The award was agreed upon after both sides met with an arbitrator, ending what many viewed as the first significant litigation of its kind – and the first of many to come. The case arose last July, when supermarket chain Produce Palace sued systems vendor Tec America Inc after a customer attempted to pay with a credit card carrying the expiration date 00 and brought the store’s entire point-of-sale computer system down, effectively shutting it down for a couple of days. $250,000 will be paid out by Tec America and $10,000 by co-defendant All-American Cash Register Inc. Separately, in what could be seen as a precedent-setting case for future Y2K-related litigation, Andersen Consulting is taking a hard-line stance against a customer which sought reimbursement for monies spent to make an Andersen-installed system Y2K compliant. Andersen has asked a Massachusetts state court for a declaratory judgment against retailer J Baker Inc following the company’s repeated demands for reimbursement of the $3m it shelled out to upgrade the mainframe-based merchandising system which Andersen deployed for the company between 1989 and 1991. Andersen maintains that it met all of its contractual obligations in providing a system that performed well for nearly a decade and says it was reluctant to take this course of action but felt it had no real choice. Many would dispute that, believing instead that Andersen is using the J Baker case to both test the legal waters as to its Y2K liability and to send a message to customers who might be mulling similar action that it is willing to play hardball with anyone.
