Fine Print
Categories: Metrics, Regulations, Incorporation
That itsy, bitsy, teeny tiny...nope, no polka dots here: just a bunch of legalese and words you don’t know that you’re not going to spend all day looking up and trying to make sense of.
Fine print is the small print that comes with opting into a service or contract, such as contract agreements, conditions, and important user/customer disclosures. Usually, the fine print is so fine that it gets its own separate document.
It’s not uncommon for companies to put important stipulations and things in the fine print where consumers are unlikely to find them. It’s a place to hide things in the forest of small print and legalese...things companies have to tell consumers, but that they also hide from them. These are the things companies can point to after they get in trouble. The legal department can say “well, we told people the risks, right there in the fine print.”
Fine print can even impact things you’re not actually signing. For instance, if you’re trying to assess a company’s worth, their financial statements might be inflated if you don’t read the fine print of what accounting methods they used.
Nobody likes fine print, but we all put up with it, because...whatcha gonna do?
Regulations make companies do it to protect consumers, who then sign their lives away and don’t read it (because they can’t anyway). Yes, everything is working just fine. Fine as fine print.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is a red herring? (Plus Br...35 Views
finance a la shmoop what is a red herring?
hi I'm red, red-err-ing.. red herring I'm here to tell you about my role in high [Red herring swimming in the ocean]
finance I'm actually the co-star of an IPO, how so you asked well yes of
course you asked..what's that, what's my primary job well my primary job is to
distract that's kind of why I was put on earth here to distract people, fish and [Man on a ship]
birds from you know other things that's what the red in red herrings do and no
we're not communists although we all do like the same brand of plankton but
that's me the fish me the IPO mascot that's a lot more fun...
I'm the namesake of an investment marketing document I'm the papers that
get filed with the SEC that outline the details of a new offering an IPO....
A secondary placement of founder shares after a company has already been public
a while as well I'm also there for a bond offering, a proposed merger all of [List of what red herrings are used for]
them need me so why do I exist.... while the goal here is to give investors
time to really get to know the issue they may want to invest in I don't carry
all the details not specific pricing, no legally binding asks and just an outline
of what's being proposed but I'm like 98% done and by not being fully done
it's easy to amend and tweak and change this and that so that the really uptight [Red herring talking]
fisherman at the SEC don't get all hacked off if they you know end up
reeling something in that well they didn't want [Fisherman catches a shark]