Best Disclaimer Language Ever
I like a legal department that has a sense of humor. This is the standard disclaimer that Contango Oil & Gas Company (MCF) includes with their quarterly earnings reports:
Lawyer Stuff
The future is unknowable. We have good intentions but all of our projections and estimates will be wrong, and could be materially wrong. Wildcat exploration is expensive, speculative and potentially dangerous. An offshore spill or explosion would be enormously expensive. We have insurance but it may not be enough. You could lose your entire investment. Don’t be lazy – read our 10-Q’s, 10-K’s and press releases, and if you lose money – please no tears.
“Don’t forget about risk-free T-bills in your portfolio…After inflation and taxes you’ll likely only lose 5-10% of your investment.”
- Contango V.P. Investor Relations
Great stuff!
Hat tip Aurelian Management
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February 8th, 2012 at 10:54 am
Ken Peak is cut from the same cloth as the folks at Expeditors. Love ‘em both!
February 8th, 2012 at 11:30 am
A plain-language handbook from the SEC
http://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf
Article from Slate on e-mail disclaimers:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2004/06/email_confidential.single.html
The longest (in 2001) e-mail disclaimer referenced in the above article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/18/the_2001_daftas_longest_email/
A sample of standard form legal disclaimers:
http://www.csss-sa.com/disclaimers/disclaimer.html
February 8th, 2012 at 11:59 am
It’s good stuff. They have the same disclaimer on all their investors presentations.
Did you know the entire company employees *8* people? I think it’s fantastic.
February 8th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
The future is unknowable. We have good intentions but all of our projections and estimates (even after fact)will be wrong, and could be materially WRONG!
Ha Ha
sounds like a good template for the BLS reports.
February 8th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
“…You could lose your entire investment. Don’t be lazy – read our 10-Q’s, 10-K’s and press releases, and if you lose money – please no tears.”
I wish the same attitude were applied to AAA ratings.
February 8th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
I like the last sentence (T-Bills)….will have to float that past FINRA….see if they like it.
February 8th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
[...] The best disclaimer language ever. (Big Picture) [...]
February 8th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
In a similar vein, here is a privacy policy that, unlike most, is honest about how they protect your privacy.
February 8th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
It reminds me of the disclaimer from the business plan in Cryptonomicon:
“EXTREMELY SERIOUS WARNING (printed out on a separate page, in red letters on a yellow background): Unless you are as smart as Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss, savvy as a half-blind Calcutta bootblack, tough as General William Tecumseh Sherman, rich as the Queen of England, emotionally resilient as a Red Sox fan, and as generally able to take care of yourself as the average nuclear submarine commander, you should never have been allowed near this document. Please dispose of it as you would any piece of high-level radioactive waste and then arrange with a qualified surgeon to amputate your arms at the elbows and gouge your eyes from their sockets. This warning is necessary because once, a hundred years ago, a little old lady in Kentucky put a hundred dollars into a dry goods company that went belly-up and returned her only ninety-nine dollars. Ever since, the government has been on our asses. If you ignore this warning, read on at your peril — you are dead certain to lose everything you’ve got and live out your final decades beating back waves of termites in a Mississippi Delta leper colony.
Still reading? Great. Now that we’ve scared off the lightweights, let’s get down to business.”
February 8th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Sure beats the heck out of the gooblegook spewed by sell-side analyists, professional money managers, each and everyspokesman for the Federal Reserve or the BLS. I think I will buy some Contango. Truth depicted as humor should always be rewarded
February 8th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
The best humor contains an element of truth.
Very funny post.
February 8th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
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February 9th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
This has to be the best disclaimer i have ever seen,the people involved with writing this should a award!
February 12th, 2012 at 9:30 am
[...] Best Disclaimer Language Ever | The Big Picture [...]
March 25th, 2012 at 12:01 am
[...] (h/t The Big Picture) [...]