CrowdStrike & Delta – Excluding Liability

While we don't know the specific terms of the software agreement between CrowdStrike and Delta Airlines, the accusations that have been flying between the two are a good reminder to make sure your agreements deal with loss appropriately.

Presumably at the time they were negotiating, neither CrowdStrike nor Delta expected a global outage of the nature that occurred on 19 July 2024. The clauses of a software agreement which deal with limitation of liability are generally heavily negotiated between supplier and customer. While at the time it can seem a waste of time (and money!) to look at these provisions, you can see that getting them right can provide protection if something ultimately goes wrong. It is important to be aware of your exposure to loss to avoid a situation where you are on the hook for significantly more than the benefit you are receiving under the agreement.