Confidential
Yes. Best practice does say that there should be a legal disclaimer, highlighting the confidentiality of the proposal’s content and how the information may or may not be distributed, used, copied, etc.However, if this is over done, it can leave the person reviewing your document feeling as if they’ve been put in hand cuffs.
Witness the following disclaimer from an e-mail received by one of our associates.
Only the company name and information has been changed. As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up folks. If you’ve seen one that’s even longer, send it along (with a generic name inserted, of course.)
——————————————————————————–
The information contained in this E-Mail and any subsequent correspondence is private and is intended solely for the intended recipient(s). The information in this communication may be confidential and/or legally privileged. Nothing in this e-mail is intended to conclude a contract on behalf of ABC Company or make ABC Company subject to any other legally binding commitments, unless the e-mail contains an express statement to the contrary or incorporates a formal Purchase Order.
For those other than the recipient any disclosure, copying, distribution, or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on such information is prohibited and may be unlawful.
Emails and other electronic communication with ABC Company may be monitored and recorded for business purposes including security, audit and archival purposes. Any response to this email indicates consent to this.
Telephone calls to ABC Company may be monitored or recorded for quality control, security and other business purposes.
ABC Company Registered in the USA, the UK and Europe: Company I.D. Number: AW231953RTF390495SRDW, Address: 123 Any Street, Somewhere, State, 90454-39453, United States of America. Ship to address: ABC Company, Post Office Box 435-23432, State, 90454-39453. Phone: 234-567-8901. Hours of operation 8-5, Mon-Fri, EST.
www.anycompany.com
info@anycompany.com
This e-mail and any attachments are for authorized use by the intended recipient(s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential information and/or be subject to legal privilege. It should not be copied, disclosed to, retained or used by, any other party. If you are not an intended recipient then please promptly delete this e-mail and any attachment and all copies and inform the sender. Thank you.
This article was written by BJ on 17 March, 2008 and filed under Word play & writing. If you found it useful, you can with others. To receive automatic updates, subscribe to The Proposal Guys via 
RSS or 
Email.
5 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
It looks like your commenting system cuts out the blank lines, I’ve added .s to retain the effect. This, along with anonymising it, are the only things I’ve changed.
This email originates from ACME Services Limited (reg. no. 123456) which is a service company for ACME UK plc (reg. no. 1234567) and the following companies within the ACME plc Group:
.
.
.
ACME Insurance Plc (reg. no. 123111)
.
.
.
ACME Insurance UK Plc (reg. no. 12350)
.
.
.
ACME General Insurance Limited (reg. no. 123885)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
All of the above mentioned companies are registered in England and have their registered office at 5 Street, London EC1Z 1AB, England.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ACME Insurance UK plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This message and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this in error, you should not disseminate or copy this email. Please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Please also note that any opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The ACME UK Plc Group.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure, or error free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, late in arriving or incomplete as a result of the transmission process. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of email transmission.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for viruses. The ACME UK Plc Group accept no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.
Great one, James.
It always makes me smile when these notices appear at the foot of an email. To paraphrase:
“If this email was not meant for you, then you should have stopped reading before you got this far. Please forget everything you have just read. And please apologise – ‘cos it’s rude to read other people’s correspondence, right?”
:-)
Great Minds:
I wrote about these types of sigs and noted the folly of thinking this was any kind of threat/protection/deterrent. Like putting a “Beware of Dog” sign on the back side of the gate into your yard.
Laura Ricci
http://www.1ricci.com/ideas/2006/11/28/what-is-your-sig-like/#more-132
Nice analogy, Laura.
Enjoyed your post. I enjoy thought-provoking quotations at the foot of emails, but these need to be handled with care with regular correspondents. “I’ve seen that so many times before” and “Oh look, they’ve not read anything new regularly” aren’t the images that one necessarily wants to create!