Y2K Litigation: More bugs hitting the same legal fan

The paper aims to do four things: Outlines the nature of the Y2K problem and of the risks associated with it; Provides a brief discussion of the types of legal issues to which Y2K has given rise and the principles which are relevant to those issues; 1 Eugene Clark is Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Law, University of Canberra Law School, George Cho is Assoc Professor of Geographic Systems and the Law and Arthur Hoyle is Lecturer in Law. Clark, Cho and Hoyle are co-authors of Y2K: Avoiding the Legal Byte, Sydney, Prospect Publishing, 1999. Research assistance has been provided by Kerrin Stewart. Y2K Litigation: More Bugs Hitting the Same Legal Fan Examines the cases which had been filed in the US by the end of 1999 to give readers a feel for the types of issues to which Y2K could yet give rise in Australia; * Provides a number of resources in print and electronic form which may be useful to those seeking more information about the legal issues inherent in the Y2K bug. The bulk of the paper deals with the types of legal issues to which Y2K has given rise and concludes that apart from the 'Good Samaritan' legislation, the bug does not raise any new legal issues. Principles of contract and tort law plus statutory regimes such as the Trade Practices Act, the Fair Trading Acts and the Corporations Law provide remedies to address the substantive issues involved.