Many businesses are looking forward to the return to pre-pandemic normality that 2021 promises to bring. For companies truly looking to get the best out of the year, legal translation should be high on the agenda. Below, we’ll look at three reasons why it will be essential to making the most of the business environment that 2021 offers.
Legal translation and economic projections – what’s in store?
Many businesses underestimate just how important legal translation can be to their growth plans. Ofer Tirsoh, CEO of translation company Tomedes, warns that not thinking strategically about legal translation could mean companies miss out:
“With the US economy recovering in 2021 – along with economies around the world – there will be plenty of new opportunities for businesses to pursue. It will be the companies with arrangements for legal document translation already in place that are best positioned to jump on those opportunities, leaving the competition standing in their dust.”
In terms of the business environment that companies can look forward to, projections vary considerably. However, most analysts agree that the post-pandemic recovery, along with the Biden bounce, should make for a fairly positive 2021 in economic terms. Morgan Stanley, for example estimates growth in real GDP of 5.9% for the United States for the year.
Using legal translation to support mergers and acquisitions
One of the ways that businesses can take advantage of this growth is through mergers and acquisitions. The pandemic wreaked havoc on large swathes of the economy, meaning there’s plenty of scope for some interesting mergers and acquisitions to take place in 2021. And with President Biden supporting the US to look outward rather than inward, a fair few will likely involve international companies.
This is where accurate, rapid legal translation can make a big difference. From memoranda of understanding and heads of terms to partnership agreements and contracts, legal translation can pave the way for smooth and effective agreements between businesses looking to join together.
Legal translation can also help with domestic mergers where staff teams in the two companies speak different languages. Usually in the US that means English and Spanish, so there is particular demand for legal document translation between these two languages. When it comes to staffing matters such as employment contracts, it’s essential to comply with legal requirements during the merger or acquisition process. Legal translation can help to achieve this.
Outsourcing overseas with legal document translation
The US’s more internationalist approach in 2021 means that many more companies are likely to switch on to the advantages of outsourcing services and manufacturing goods overseas.
In the case of outsourcing services, legal translation is needed for contracts between the two parties and for the service level agreements that will be put in place to define targets, timescales and other parameters of the delivery arrangements.
When it comes to manufacturing, legal document translation covers everything from the contracts covering the arrangement to the bills of lading required to ship them to their intended destination.
Products themselves also often generate the need for legal translation. From packaging to health and safety documentation, there are often regulatory requirements regarding the information that the product must carry. This creates a need for legal translation where products are manufactured in one location and then sold in multiple other countries.
Finding new funders in the 2021 business environment
The other reason to seek legal translation in 2021 concerns new funders. Investment capital flows around the globe and proactive companies can often find international opportunities when it comes to raising finance. Naturally, legal document translation will come into play here, both as part of the exploratory discussions and exchanges of documentation, and of the legal agreement between the business and the funder about how precisely the relationship will work.
In all three of the legal document translation scenarios included above, reliable translation is essential. This means that machine translation should be ruled out immediately. There’s simply no room for the kinds of errors that computerised translation can introduce into documents. Instead, companies looking to get the best out of the business environment in the US in 2021 should call on the services of professional human translators with extensive legal experience.
When seeking out legal translation, businesses should be sure to undertake sufficient due diligence on the language services providers that they are considering using. This means reading reviews, looking companies up on the Better Business Bureau and grilling translation companies on every aspect of their service delivery, from costs and timescales to their approach to customer service. An investment upfront in finding the right legal document translation service can pay major dividends down the line. Just as importantly, doing so can reduce the risk of mistranslations and the major legal consequences that they can have.