Cary Coglianese has written an excellent paper on the interaction between Industry Standards and the Law. His main points are as follows:
- Product Liability : When legal cases look to see if companies took “reasonable care” for their products and services, they will look to industry standards.
- Patent Law: Certain patents are intricately tied to specific standards. If that standard is used, companies need to purchase patented products or technology. Fair and reasonable pricing of those products comes into play.
- Administrative Law: 26,000 U.S. Federal provisions cite standards, 6,500 standards are referenced in Canadian law. If you want to respect law, you need to access standards.
- International Trade: International trade is underpinned by the use of international standards, to help avoid too many local regulations and standards that may impede access to markets and free trade. Standards should foster cooperation between government , industry and private companies.
- Criminal Law: Many standards are used by forensic laboratories and need to be respected to ensure evidence presented in court is reliable.
In short, standards and law are married – whether we like it or not. All good compliance professionals should ensure their teams have easy access to both the regulations that apply to their operations as well as the standards that their teams need.
