A hundred years ago, when I was in private industry, I used MOU's primarily
with subcontractors on a job we were bidding.  It established the basic
agreement we would sign IF we were awarded the contract thus allowing a rapid
deployment of subs to the work site.  It also assured us that the subs were
committed to the project, and told us how much they were going to cost.

We used MOA's when the project was going on for minor modifications to the
statements of work to the subs.  We only used them when we had reasonable
assurances that we would be compensated for any additional work or different
site conditions than described in the RFP and our inspections.

We differentiated MOU's and MOA's because the word Agreement has a stronger
legal connotation than understanding.  Understandings could be a documentation
of telephone conversations (I did that with the insurance brokers who'd NEVER
reply in writing).  Agreements ususally had  two signatures.

"Herbert B. Chermside" wrote:

> It depends on which language you and the othjer party prefer.
>
> This is NOT sarcastic -- they are effectively the same unless one party is
> in an organization which does have a differential definition.  The key
> thing is that, provided it is signed by a person with contracting authority
> for the organization, it meets the fundimentals of a contract:
> 1) agreement (as specified in the document)
> 2)  between (among) competent parties
> 2)  with consideration (the things done, the promises made, the funds
> provided, etc.) flowing both ways.
>
> Sometimes either phrase is used as meaning something less than a contract,
> e.g., an agreement between two departments in the organization regarding
> who will do what on some project -- but it is the same sense:  A and B
> agree to do X and Y.
>
> Chuck
>
> At 01:18 PM 6/11/99 -0500, Gina Lee Glauser wrote:
> >Could you explain the difference between the Memorandum of
> >Understanding (MOU) vs. Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)?
> >When do you use MOU or MOA?  Could you give an example for
> >each case?
> >
> >Thanks in advance.
> >
> >gina
> >
> >
> Herbert B. Chermside, CRA

--
Greg Schmidt
Manager, Contract & Grant Accounting
Florida A&M University
201 FHAC
Tallahassee, FL  32307-3200

DUNS:  623751831

College of the Year - 1997

voice:   850 561-2956
fax:     850 561-2461

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