Code for Handling Year 2000 Millennium Digital Ordinal Year Disputes

by Republic of China (Taiwan) Law

Article 1

To cope with the crisis of Year 2000 digital ordinal year misplacement, as well as encourage open information and balance the interests of consumers and responsibilities of enterprises, for timely and appropriate resolution of the disputes, this legislation is enacted. For matters not provided in this Act, relevant provisions of other laws shall apply.

Article 2

Definitions of terms as used in this law are as follows:

1. Digital ordinal year misplacement: indicating the mistakes resulting from any and all computers' or automatic machines' components, products, instructions, programs and affiliated systems, independent of or built into other components or products, which are incapable of correctly judging or handling data related to the Year 2000 ordinal year problems.

2. Enterprises: indicating business entities of companies,sole proprietorship, or partnership, as well as individuals and groups, which provide goods or services for trading.

Article 3

If enterprises shall be responsible by laws or contracts for compensating others' damages resulting from goods or provided services with defects of digital ordinal year misplacement, the court may reduce or exempt their liability under any of the following circumstances:

1. In provision of goods or services, warning signs on hazards from digital ordinal year misplacement have been explicitly labeled, along with exception handling instructions.

2. Prior to the occurrence of injuries, written notices of exception handling instructions on the digital ordinal year misplacement have been sent to the parties concerned, or in case of incapability of doing such notices, announcements of such exception handling instructions have been promulgated in a publicly recognized approach 15 days prior to the injuries.

3. Reasonable care has been exercised to prevent the injuries, and reasonable and necessary precautions have been taken.

4. Claimants who could prevent the injuries by their knowledge in a reasonable extent fail to prevent the injuries. Nevertheless, enterprises knowing or due to gross negligence not knowing that their goods or services have the defects of digital ordinal year misplacement fail to notify the injured persons of such defects shall not be covered in this reduction or exemption of liability.

Should the warning labels, notifications or announcements under Subparagraphs1 or 2 of preceding paragraph be excerpted from somewhere else, their origins and verified situation shall be described.

For enterprises setting forth the warning labels, notifications, or announcements along with reasonable and necessary statements in compliance with the above two paragraphs,the acts shall not constitute acts of damaging others' business reputation, unless they conduct some mistakes out of their intention or gross negligence.

For enterprises which can prove others' injuries are not the result of the enterprises' intention or gross negligence, their liability for compensation are limited to the actual injuries incurred to others, excluding the others' loss of interests as stipulated in Civil Law Article 216.

Article 4

Claims on punitive damages for digital ordinal year misplacement by other laws or contracts shall not exceed twice the amounts of injuries. However, for injuries out of enterprises' intentional behavior or with infringement of others' life, body or health, the limitation shall not apply.

Article 5

The debtors who fail to timely pay the debts resulting from digital ordinal year misplacement shall send written notices to the creditors describing the reasons of the delayed payments within 7 business days upon awareness of the matter.

The debtors who make up the due payments within two weeks from the date of the occurrence of the digital ordinal year misplacement shall be deemed as no delay of the payments.

Article 6

Claimants who claim injuries from digital ordinal year misplacement and intend to exercise the rights for compensation shall not initiate the action to the court unless having sent a written notice to the counterparty regarding the facts of digital ordinal year misplacement and the injuries occurred, and offered the counterparty 30 days to adjust the misplacement, recover the status of things to its original condition, repair the defects, or compensate for the injuries.

Article 7

This code is applicable to the events of digital ordinal year misplacement occurred before January 1, 2003. For contracts constituted before the date of coming into force of this code, Article 3 and 4 are also applicable.

Article 8

This code shall come into force from the date of its promulgation.