ake it prohibitive. Companies spending money on insurance will never get return on their investment. Policies are likely to provide false security and companies are better of putting their money and effort to solving problems at hand (15). Legal issues Legal issues arising from year 2000 problem alone can put many organizations out of business. By the turn of the century, business managers and IT vendors will be seeing lot of year 2000 related lawsuits. Many has wrongfully believed the problem to be a primarily a technical issue. But lot of companies will fail to conduct business even before the deadline hits home. Produce Place International Inc. of Warren, Michigan recently had its newly installed Unix Point-of-Sales system come to crashing halt when a customer tried to use a credit card with "00" expiration date. All the register froze. Though the business could accept cash or checks, lots of people walked out in frustration due to backed up line at the registers. After many support calls to the vendor, the store has sued the manufacturer of all American Cash Register Inc. for breach of warranty and breach of duty of good faith, etc.(8). Vendors are not going to face the lawsuits alone –- IT managers who fail to meet the Y2K compliance and would cause contamination in customers’ and partners’ systems may also find themselves defending in court of law. Some experts asks IT managers to take it as a legal issue as well and to document their Y2K repair efforts. There are other lawsuits pending in the Superior Court of the State of California. It is likely that all these early cases will be settled out of court to avoid public attention. Some companies are taking actions now. The big three auto manufacturers has joined together to write to the suppliers to fix the problem or face litigation in future (8). The vendors are likely to use the theory that the risk was unforeseeable or there was a disclaimer of warranty explic...
