Y2K: Legal Implications and Future Repercussions

The legal system will ultimately determine where much of the huge losses that will be occasioned by the Millennium Bug will land. Seemingly minor glitches, such as a computerized inventory control system's wrongfully rejecting an order of chemicals as expired since 1900 (when the real expiration date is in the year 2000) can create a myriad of lawsuits among manufacturers, suppliers, customers, software vendors and consultants, and insurance companies. No major producers or consumers of software will escape unscathed. Although software producers have grounds for optimism regarding the early rounds of litigation, it is likely that persistent plaintiffs' attorneys and concerned legislators ultimately will threaten a " litigation crisis " of unprecedented proportions. The software industry can fruitfully draw strategic lessons from the accounting profession's similar litigation crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s in terms of litigation strategies, lobbying efforts, and funding of useful academic research.