Launch Tennessee (Tennessee Technology Development Corporation) is a publicly (at least partly) funded organization that promotes development throughout the state. Launch Tennessee is embroiled in a battle with PandoDaily over whether Launch Tennessee has new "partners" or not. PandoDaily is a real company from out west. My first reaction to the news was "wow PandoDaily is a really unfortunate name." See our sister blog, Trademarkologist, for some tips on that front. My second reaction was "why are they throwing around the 'p' word like that?"
Anyway, Pando (not my slur, they call themselves this) sued Launch Tennessee a couple weeks ago for breach of contract. Launch Tennessee had a promotion agreement with Pando, which I surmise from the complaint, it regretted until the agreement finally terminated in October 2014. With their breakup, the Southland Conference died.
Launch Tennessee has announced a new conference called 36/86 (for the latitude coordinates of the location of the conference) and Pando has announced a competing conference called Pandoland, which will be held two weeks later. The two events bookend Bonnaroo.
The dispute centers around a clause in the agreement that states that for a year following termination, Launch Tennessee would not host a conference the week before Bonaroo in which it "partners with another national media company." And yes, it actually says "Bonnaroo." Pando claims that Launch Tennessee is "partnering" with TechCrunch and Silicon Prairie News for the 36/86 event. Launch Tennessee used the "p" word to describe these two companies in a press release about its rebranded conference.
So what does partnering mean? The Oxford dictionary says that a partner is "a person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or company with shared risks and profits." Black's legal dictionary says a partnership is "A voluntary contract between two or more competent persons to place their money, effects, labor, and skill, or some or all of them, in lawful commerce or business, with the understanding that there shall be a proportional sharing of the profits and losses between them."
Often people throw the word "partner" around to mean lots of things, but when you get right down to it partners share risk and profit, profit and losses. Partners also have duties to one another including the duty to act for the common benefit of the other partners and to act as fiduciaries for one another. I don't know whether Launch Tennessee is sharing profits, risks and losses with TechCrunch and Silicon Prairie News, but I tend to doubt they are partners. In Tennessee partners owe each other a duty of care and a duty of loyalty, and generally they can act on behalf of and bind each other. This basically means you have to look out for each other until you split.
Most companies don't really mean that when they say they are "partnering" with another company. They usually mean "contracting with" but it just doesn't connote the same feeling – because it is not the same. Independent contractors don't have the same duties to each other. Independent contractors deal with each other at arm's length, with a duty of "good faith and fair dealing," which is simply that each party will refrain from undermining the other party's right to receive its rights under the contract.
Just something to keep in mind before using the "p" word unless you mean it. I always cringe when I hear people use it in vain. Might I suggest the following pet names instead: "Associate," "Collaborator," "Sponsor," "Teammate," or even "Buddy." Thesaurus.com suggested "Confederate" too, but I'm really not sure that quite says it.
In the meantime, let's boycott the out-of-town Panderland convention too. Why not? I'm feeling surly today as a taxpayer. Pando took enough money out of the state last year.
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