Changes to clause and document classification to help customers find relevant information

In October 2022, Nimonik is implementing a change to our classification schema for documents and clauses. We originally had classification for Clauses only (not documents) that had Applicability, Fines & Penalties, Obligations, Dates, Exceptions and Definitions. This was never fully implemented across all clauses due to its complexity and automation challenges. 

Since 2019, we have been offering a binary classification of clauses with Obligations and everything else. Our definition of Obligations was fairly broad and captured more information than what our customers really wanted. As such, we embarked on a new plan that would clarify the classification of both documents and clauses. We are separating the past categorization scheme into an Obligations categorization for Clauses and adding new Topics to our Topics List.

We are rolling out these changes in October 2022 in a progressive manner. It should be emphasised that no functionality is being lost – customers will receive new functionality and improved clarity on the documents and clauses they are interested in.

Roll-out Schedule

• Migrate the clause classification for CLCO from the Binary (2 class) and the Six-Class classification to the 4 class classification: October 1st, 2022
• All new and changed classifications will receive the 4-class classification
• Re-classify existing obligations with the narrower definition of obligations: October 2022 – March 2023. This will reduce the number of clauses that are classified as obligations, but it should not add new obligations.
• Add the Fines & Penalties and the Date Topics to the Topics list: October 20th, 2022
• Assign Fines & Penalties and Date Topics to Clauses: October 30th, 2022
• Assign Fines & Penalties and Date Topics to Documents for which we have a copy of the document in our database: November 15th, 2022
• We plan to progressively add more document text to our database, as this is done it will be tagged with Fines & Penalties and Dates and Topics. There is no end date to this. Currently about 50% of the documents in our database have the full text. We hope to increase this number to 80% by the end of 2023.

1. Move to a four classification schema for clauses (sections) of documents 

Implement a schema for clauses that has four categories and where Obligations for Companies are more tightly defined. 

The changes will appear in the Clauses drop-down on the CLCO pages:

The definition we are now using for Obligations for companies is:

“An Obligation is something that someone not in government (e.g. company, organization, bosses, workers, people) has to do or should do, or must not do or should not do.

The following terms often indicate an Obligation: must do, must not do, shall do, shall not do, may not do, cannot do, are not eligible to do, will do, will not do, are obliged to do, are not entitled to do, or do not have the right to do.

• However, obligations can be indirectly worded. For example, all of the following are Obligations (non-govt):
  • “An employer has 10 days to submit a report.”
  • “It is a requirement for every person to submit a report within 10 days.”
  • “The government requires every person to submit a report within 10 days.”
  • “Every report must be submitted within 10 days.”
  • “You have a responsibility to keep your employees safe.”
    • However, this clause is Information: “The fee to submit an application is $100.”
• Obligation can also be worded in relation to an offence, unlawful activity, or (occasionally) liability.
  • Hint: To distinguish an “Obligation liability” from an “Information liability”, look for a penalty.
  • For example, the following are Obligation:
    • “Every person is guilty of an offence if, in contravening this Act, they cause a risk of imminent death or serious bodily harm to another person.”
    • “It is a violation for a person to smoke in a workplace.”
    • “It is unlawful to have an ignition source in a space with a potentially explosive atmosphere.”
    • “The offense of gambling is a Class C misdemeanor.” (i.e. “It is an offense (of a Class C type) to gamble.”)”

The results for clause classification will be:

Clauses in CLCOs may be classified as follows:

• Obligation – Contains information about what a non government entity must or must not do
• Applicability – Contains information about the applicability of the document, or a subsection of the document
• Obligation for Government – Contains information about what the government may or may not do
• Information – Contains information that does not fall into any of the categories above

2. Introduce new Topics for both Documents and Clauses with Fines & Penalties, Energy Management Topic and and also introduce Dates

To ensure that our customers can find relevant information, we are adding three Topics to our Topics list. The three topics will be:

Dates: This topic will allow you to filter both documents and clauses for any mention of a date. Dates could be reporting dates, coming into force dates, or other dates mentioned in the document. 

This will be rolled out progressively, first for clauses and then for documents. Please note that not all documents have full-text in our database and therefore the Topic may not be associated with documents where full-text is not available.

Fines & Penalties: This Topic will allow you to filter both documents and clauses for mentions of sanctions, monetary values, fines, penalties or other instruments that may be used to punish offenders. 

This will be rolled out progressively, first for clauses and then for documents. Please note that not all documents have full-text in our database and therefore the Topic may not be associated with documents where full-text is not available.

Energy Management: This topic will allow you to filter for documents and clauses that talk about energy management, energy efficiency, energy reports, energy audits and other related concepts. 

This will be rolled out progressively, first for clauses and then for documents. Please note that not all documents have full-text in our database and therefore the Topic may not be associated with documents where full-text is not available.

These new Topics will appear in three locations: on the Library Page, the Topics Page and on the CLCO pages.

Library page:

Topics Page:

CLCO Page:

General Changes to Topics: Moving to Level 2 Topics that are automatically assigned and removing non-assigned Level 2 Topics

Please note that Documents have never been associated with level two topics (such as “wildfires, protected areas,…”. Clauses have been associated with Level 2 topics in the past. We provided these level two topics to inform our users what was contained within the first level of topics such as “Wildlife and Land Conservation” which contains “Wildfires, protected areas, Control of Invasive Flora and Fauna…”. To clarify what is in a level 1 topic, we will be adding a definitions and descriptions page for each topic. In the meantime, we will be removing level 2 topics.

The only level 2 topics that are assigned to Documents are the ones under “Equipement”. To standardise the way topics work, we will transition to level 2 topics that are actually assigned to documents. This will be done with Fines & Penalties, Dates, and Energy Management first. Other Topics will follow progressively (roll-out remains to be determined).

This will have the benefit of providing actual filtering capabilities for level two topics and removing confusion related to the ability to filter according to those level two topics. 

Appendix

Goal

Determine what classification to assign to a clause.

Default Procedure

If the clause contains an obligation that’s not for the government*, classify it “Obligation”.

(or that’s not only for the government)

An Obligation is something that someone not in government (e.g. company, organization, bosses, workers, people) has to do or should do, or must not do or should not do.

The following terms often indicate an Obligation: must do, must not do, shall do, shall not do, may not do, cannot do, are not eligible to do, will do, will not do, are obliged to do, are not entitled to do, or do not have the right to do.

• However, obligations can be indirectly worded. For example, all of the following are Obligations (non-govt):
  • “An employer has 10 days to submit a report.”
  • “It is a requirement for every person to submit a report within 10 days.”
  • “The government requires every person to submit a report within 10 days.”
  • “Every report must be submitted within 10 days.”
  • “You have a responsibility to keep your employees safe.”
    • However, this clause is Information: “The fee to submit an application is $100.”
• Obligation can also be worded in relation to an offence, unlawful activity, or (occasionally) liability.
  • Hint: To distinguish an “Obligation liability” from an “Information liability”, look for a penalty.
  • For example, the following are Obligation:
    • “Every person is guilty of an offence if, in contravening this Act, they cause a risk of imminent death or serious bodily harm to another person.”
    • “It is a violation for a person to smoke in a workplace.”
    • “It is unlawful to have an ignition source in a space with a potentially explosive atmosphere.”
    • “The offense of gambling is a Class C misdemeanor.” (i.e. “It is an offense (of a Class C type) to gamble.”)

Additional examples:

Clause text	Classification	Because
It is an offence to pollute a waterway; the fine for this offence is $1000.	Obligation	The intent of “It is an offence to pollute” is to say that you must not pollute (an obligation), and any obligation within the clause makes the clause an Obligation.
The fine for polluting a waterway is $1000.	Information	It specifies the consequence for not complying with an Obligation, but does not itself tell you what you must not do.
Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to eliminate any liability that an applicant may have for the negligent use of a firearm.” (i.e. “If you use a firearm negligently, you are criminally liable.”)	Obligation	It does not say what penalty you are liable for. The intent is to say that you must not do something.
An applicant who negligently uses a firearm is liable for damage up to the amount of 5000 PLN.	Information	It uses the form “liable for“, specifying what the penalty is for non-compliance.

Implications for companies based on what the government may, must, or will do, are not Obligation, unless they would be Obligation if the government-related text were removed.

• You may only remove the government-related text if it is not the only subject of the sentence (e.g. you may remove a conditional clause, or text that contains one of multiple subjects of the sentence.) For example,
• The following are Obligation:
  • “If the government asks for a report, the client has 10 days to submit it.” (with government-related text removed, we’re left with “the client has 10 days to submit [the report]”, which is an Obligation (see above))
  • “The [subject ->] government [verb ->] may issue a permit, and the [subject ->] permittee [verb ->] must comply with it.” (the sentence has two subjects, each with their own verb)
  • “The government recommends that every person provide a report.” (this is an indirectly worded Obligation, similar to the “The government requires every person to submit a report” example provided earlier)
• The following are not Obligation:
  • “The government may require any person to provide a report.” (i.e. “The government may require” is Information, but “The government requires” is Obligation–see examples above)
  • “A plant health officer [government] may serve a notice requiring a person to dispose of prohibited material.”
  • “The government may set emission limits for CO2 emitted by a facility.” (Information)
  • “The [subject ->] government [verb ->] shall issue [everything else is the object->] a permit that includes a condition that a permit holder must provide notice of a change to the permitted activity.” (Obligation for Government)

If the clause contains an incorporation by reference, classify it “Obligation”, unless it is clear from the clause’s text that it cannot be an Obligation.

“Incorporation by reference” refers to the practice of declaring that the text of a referenced document (B) is included in the current document (A), without the need to reproduce the text of document B in document A.

• Documents incorporated by reference therefore have the same force of law as the document within which they are incorporated.
• Any words can be used to indicate an incorporation by reference; it’s the declaration that’s important, rather than the words that are used.
• A simple mention of, or reference to, another document is not incorporation by reference; what’s needed is the sense of including another document within the current document.

If the clause contains an obligation that is for the government, classify it “Obligation for Government”.

An Obligation for Government is something that someone in government has to do or should do, or must not do or should not do.

For the purpose of classification, “government” includes

• Public bodies;
• Agencies;
• Entities controlled by the government;
• People employed by, or under contract to, the government; and
• People appointed by the government.

“Government” does not include the following people or groups, unless there is another reason to consider them governmental:

• People or groups accredited by the government; and
• Government-funded services or bodies (e.g. universities, medical professionals not employed by government but reimbursed for their services, road repair).

If the clause is about applicability, classify it “Applicability”.

An Applicability clause may be about the applicability of an entire document or of any number of clauses in a document (whether the current document, or a different document).

Applicability addresses (add info re: does there have to be a connection to obligations?)

• When the document or clause(s) applies or does not apply;
  • However, information about document changes, including effective dates, is “Information” (see below).
• Where the document or clause(s) applies or does not apply;
• What the document or clause(s) does or does not apply to; or
• Who the document or clause(s) does or does not apply to.
  • However, information about who may do something is “Information” (see below).

However, if the clause doesn’t actively say that a document or clause(s) do apply, and it doesn’t say that a document or clauses don’t apply (e.g. it just says that nothing in the clause affects the applicability of other clauses), then the clause is not Applicability (see below).

Classify any other clause “Information”.

An Information clause may be about definitions; something that someone is allowed to do; penalties for non-compliance; lists (e.g. substances or places); the document’s purpose or goals; changes to the document (e.g. amendment history or CIF info); or any other text that is neither Obligation nor Applicability.

If the clause contains more than one kind of text, apply the priority order Obligation > Applicability > Information > Obligation for Government.

In order for a clause to be considered to have “more than one kind of text”, each “kind of text” must have its own subject-verb pair. See above for examples of sentences with multiple subjects and verbs.

For example,

• Classify the following as “Obligations”: “A person responsible for a spill must immediately notify the Ministry. The penalty for non-compliance with this requirement is $500 per day.”
• Classify the following as “Applicability”: “Part II applies to public employers. It comes into force on March 1, 2023.”
• Classify the following as “Information”: “The Ministry may revoke a permit that has expired. The Ministry must review a permit if construction has not commenced within 18 months from the date of issuance of the permit.”

When classifying, classify using the meaning of the text.

For example,

• “If you receive a notice, you may respond either electronically or using lettermail”: This implies that you must do either X or Y; classify it “Obligation”.
• “You may only discharge wastewater if you have a permit”: You can be in non-compliance with this; classify it “Obligation”.
• “An LNG facility permit holder may use gas containing hydrogen sulphide only if the gas contains no more than 20 parts per million of hydrogen sulphide”: You can be in non-compliance with this; classify it “Obligation”.
• The following is intended to indicate an exemption but you can be in non-compliance with this (see example above); classify it “Obligation”: (text in square brackets is provided for context only): [18 (1) Subject to subsection (2), an LNG facility permit holder must not flare gas from the facility.] 18 (2) An LNG facility permit holder may flare gas from the LNG facility if flaring is required for maintenance purposes, or permission to flare is included in the facility permit.”