translation fees

[Michael Trittipo]

>
>
>that someone will scream if I actually repeat the openly advertised pricing
>· Do translators who advertise their prices, thus revealing them to
>competitors, violate FTC rules?
>
No, because advertising isn't discussion.  It's unilateral, not
multilateral.

> (Obviously, the FTC has no pull over .ru
>sites - or even the one .uk site I saw.)
>
True, although European Union law on price-fixing is much the same, at
least as I read the EU texts and French judgments based on and applying
the French implementation of EU antitrust law requirements.  I don't
know Russian law, and haven't checked UK decisions.  Czech law, which I
have read a bit of, has language susceptible of supporting the same
results, but I don't know of decisions applying it.  (There may be; I
just don't know of them.)

>· Is a public discussion on fees by non-translators in the spirit of "Here
>are the kinds fees I have heard bandied about:" an FTC violation?
>
No comment -- any lawyer you'd ask would have some additional questions,
e.g., about whether the non-translators are potential buyers, whether
the context might indicate a possible tacit encouragement or pressure
for the common good of buyers to say "pay no more than this," etc.

>. . . is a SEELANGS discussion of fees vs. issues of quality . . . not warranted? Would that also be a
>violation of FTC rules?
>
What's warranted or not on SEELANGS is, imo, for the listowner to
decide.  I'm sure he has access to competent legal counsel at CUNY.

>. . . not because of fears about fixing prices, but because of
>the potential for falling prices.
>
>
Ah, that's just the rub, though.  Any context of falling prices gives a
prosecutor grounds for asking a jury to believe that at least two
discussants' motive was to urge unity or cooperation among themselves to
prevent the prices from falling too low.  Both the U.S. and the French
courts have rejected a defense that "but Your Honor, we were only trying
to forestall the social ills of ruinous competition and a race to the
bottom."

With that I'll stop.  There's no one here, I imagine, who doesn't have
access to University counsel or for that matter private counsel if he or
she really wants or feels a need for advice.  So there's no need for any
advice from me.  But, so this doesn't all stay in the realm of "he said,
she said," I can give a URL to each of two separate drafts that I once
wrote for another list of some *background* information about U.S. (and
to a certain extent, French) law in the area.  There are two, because
I've never had a reason to take time to consolidate the two rough drafts
into a single article and take it beyond a draft stage.  I'll leave them
up for eight hours today, until 5 p.m. CST, at
http://ns1.statebar.gen.mn.us/xlprf2.htm (a bit less rough, and with
more info on French law -- though the list of bar associations that got
hit with fines, and the total, is by now a couple of years out of date.
 Lots more French lawyers and others have learned in the past couple of
years about bites to French competition law that they used to think were
true only in the U.S.) and http://ns1.statebar.gen.mn.us/xlprf1.htm
(from which draft I copied the initial paragraphs for my post yesterday).
.
Having now written twice on this topic, I'll bow out and post no more on
this topic.  Moreover, I joined this list as many no doubt did, to talk
about Slavic (or other East European) languages and literature -- not
about law.  One of the things I like about the list is how on-topic it
stays.  I apologize in adance for having posted this second message
off-topic, and will cease now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                  http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------