[madaxe_again]

On the note of bullshit contracts...

We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone (completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed acceptance.

This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering starting a business which simply sends spam, with T's and C's in each email which state that by receiving the email you have agreed to become a paying customer, and to pay any fees we demand for "the service", which is receiving the email, which allows you to know that your email is working. The intent of course not being to be another scammer, but to get the law changed.

[mortov]

You need a better lawyer.

If the situation is as you describe, sending unsolicited email and then charging you for receiving it (that's essentially what you're describing) when you have clear evidence you hired via the prior contact with another agency (they have that documented, right ?) is something which can be easily fought - albeit in court with some initial costs if they're going to be ass-ish.

You would win both your case and the legal costs if things are as cut and dried as you suggest.

However, if you replied to the unsolicited email (establishing you saw it) and there is no evidence of the prior agency being before that, you have a more difficult case. My personal experience of two agencies being involved was that the agencies sorted it out amongst themselves how to split the single fee which was paid to one of them - this was in the UK as you seem to be.

Only an experienced lawyer familiar with the details of your situation can properly advise you. I'm curious that you've been advised to settle if you've consulted a lawyer and appraised them of the situation you describe. Normally lawyers like slam-dunks like this.

My experience is recruiters don't send unprompted candidates because, without a prior agreement/contract, they will have difficulties in establishing they made an initial introduction and hence qualify to get paid. Otherwise they can just mailbomb you with millions of name variations and claim they introduced you to everyone on the planet and you owe them $$$$$s. [I think you realize this with your 'proposed' new business venture. ;-) ]

[sjehay]

I am not a lawyer, but have had a similar argument with a recruiter in the past (their claim sounds like it was rather more concrete than this one). We sent them a firm letter from a lawyer, and never heard from them again. It might be worth taking advice before paying the £15k.

[andrewfong]

Ooh, that gives me an idea: What if I put a clause in my T&C stating that if you run a business and use my service, you agree to not be an ass about your own T&Cs (with an appropriate definition of ass-ish behavior)? And what if a whole slew of other start-ups did as well?

Probably not enforceable -- but it'd be hilarious if having a no-bad-review clause in your T&C made you liable to, for example, the Flappy Bird developer.

[jammycakes]

My first reaction on reading this was, "What about the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act and similar legislation?" However, a few minutes of Googling and reading up on contract law on Wikipedia suggests to me that there's a very real problem here. It turns out that unsolicited goods and services legislation only applies to consumers: for B2B it's somewhat more complicated.

For a contract to be valid, four things are necessary: an offer, an acceptance, a consideration, and an intention to create a legally binding relationship.

You can't accept a contract just by reading it: you have to take some action indicating your acceptance. Normally this would be by communicating it, but in the case of unilateral contracts (e.g. software licence agreements), it can be by some other action such as clicking an "I agree" button.

I'd guess that what is going on here is that the recruiter is trying to argue that you've indicated acceptance of their contract by hiring the guy. I'd guess that a paper trail to another agency would give your case some weight, but I'd guess that YMMV on that one.

This is why non-trivial companies have HR departments. The way they get round this one is by having clear disclaimers on their jobs/contact pages repudiating any liability for unsolicited CVs. Here are a couple of examples that I've come across - KPMG: http://www.kpmgcareers.co.uk/experienced-professionals/agenc... Cargill: http://www.cargill.com/careers/notice-staffing-agencies-plac...

[JonnieCache]

Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more details?

[madaxe_again]

No, we're fighting via our lawyer, but if it does end up in court, we will likely lose as contract law is pretty strong in the UK - and apparently this is a significant part of this recruiter's business model, so they're well practised at it and have test cases in which they've been victorious.

[mortov]

sender domain please ? I need to update my block list on my mailservers to protect my customers (and myself).

There must be public links/references if this is their business model - care to share those ?

Also, what test cases ? Those are public record in the UK - they are no liablity issues in pointing to matters of public record/factual court records.

[joopxiv]

A contract doesn't mean anything unless you actually sign it. Which I understand you didn't.

[bsg75]

If you are bound by contracts that you received without requesting or signing, its time to leave the UK.

If that "business model" is allowed to proceed, what is to stop the contract trolls from suing everything into oblivion?

[ensignavenger]

Why not send an email to them with a contract that nullifies the previous contract? I would love to hear a judge try to justify why one contract is enforceable for just receiving and email and another is not.

[perlpimp]

Have you signed an exclusive contract in ink? If not then coder is a shared resource. Though laws can be draconian and make you guilty even in event of actual innocence.

[LunaSea]

Just forward their emails to the UK government and wait to see if they will cough-up money too.

[rasz_pl]

sounds like you need a better lawyer

[netcan]

Wow. Infuriating (and expensive).

I think this is a good example of how the current approach is broken. The "consumer protection" approach which basically deems clauses as valid or not is much weaker for businesses.

[ajuc]

UK is in EU, so there are illegal clauses in contracts and I think that should be covered by these (but IANAL).