Hi there. 2012 has started out very well at GTS and we are quite busy. The downside is that my blogging production has gone way down and this is only my second post this year. Sign of things to come? I hope so and I expect to pick up the writing pace soon.
I wanted to tell you a story that happened to us late last year. A client named ECETOC (European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals) ordered a website translation project from us in 5 languages. You can see the site on http://www.ecetoc.org. We delivered the translations and looked forward to a productive relationship with this very important client. But then we got this response from the client:
As you know, we have had issues since the outset with the Spanish texts and the feedback from each of the four independent Spanish reviewers is that it is not an accurate translation of the original and not representative of the meaning of the English version. They also said that a number of its phrases would simply not be used in Spain. This problem is causing an unreasonable amount of delay to everyone concerned and is putting us in jeopardy of not fulfilling the project on time. For these reasons it was decided to look for another provider for this language rather than to continue trying to correct your version (the scientists concerned are too busy anyway) and expect you to find another translator to finalise it.
This brings us to your recent invoice no. C-112-10/11-457. Please be so kind as to send a credit note to cancel this invoice and issue a new invoice without the Spanish translation option. This invoice will then be paid as soon as the validation on the staged sites has been completed for the 5 languages.
Four of the five languages were well received, but the Spanish version was rejected and the end-client refused to pay for it.
My question is, what would you do in this case? We tried hard to get the client to approve our Spanish version, but they emphatically refused. Since the Spanish translation was prepared by a partner translation company in Spain, are we liable to pay them? Can we simply not pay them and tell them “tough luck, you messed up?”
To be honest, that is what we did. We refused payment based on this client report. But our supplier is very upset, threatening to sue us and sending non-payment reports to some Internet sites.
I am interested in doing the right thing. On one hand the translation company did their job and handed in the translation. But on the other hand we did not get paid for the job they did and ended up losing a good account and future earnings. There are only losers here unfortunately.
Please let me know what you think. Should we pay the Spanish translation company anyway? Should they drop their claims? Should we compromise in some way? I would like to know what you think. Your answers may help us resolve this situation and make sure that we handle this in the right way.
