The guidelines for reading a memorandum of understanding are essentially the same. These are usually not written in legal language and can be quite simple, so reading and understanding can be much easier. Even if it is not a legal document, a memorandum of understanding is a promise and should be treated in the same way by the signatories as a treaty: you should feel bound to it and, if you sign it, you should do everything in your power to enforce its conditions. In the UK, the term MoU is often used to refer to an agreement between certain parts of The Crown. This term is often used in the context of decentralisation, for example in the 1999 Concordat between the Central Ministry for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Scottish Environment Directorate. In addition, there are two other legal conditions under which a memorandum of understanding or no formal agreement can be treated as a treaty. As has already been said, a memorandum of understanding is not a legal document and will not be judged. They cannot use it – except morally – to maintain another organization as promised. But you can use it as a guide, as a reminder, as an incentive to act. For example, if an organization agreed, at the request of a funder, to act as a transfer of money to another organization that had not yet received its federal tax-exempt classification.
The first organization would simply ask the funder for money at reasonable intervals and give it to the second….
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