Trading Partner Agreement in Electronic Data Interchange Relationship
Trading Partner Agreement means an agreement in a form of contract related to the exchange of EDI information in electronic transactions. Trading Partner Agreement may include various terms of EDI exchange, such as duties, responsibilities, liabilities. It is used to provide additional security for each party to prevent disputes, since the terms of electronic business have been outlined and agreed in TPA. TPA may be a distinct or part of a larger agreement between each party.
The goals of the Trading Partner Agreement are to:
- Establish and characterize EDI data sharing relationship between two or more parties
- Document the processes and issues related to the exchange of EDI data for a specific flow
- Develop a relationship with a partner to share data and identify the key data sets of interest, standards needed, and other contractual requirements.
As parties desire to facilitate transactions, reports and other information exchanged by electronically transmitting and receiving data in agreed formats; to assure that such transactions are not legally invalid or unenforceable as a result of the use of available electronic technologies for the mutual benefit of the parties, signing TPA will be a conformation of the agreed conditions.
Trading Partner Agreement (TPA) is a confidential document whose revelation could jeopardize the commerce and communication that is conducted between the parties to the agreement. The parties should take at least the same amount of care to secure this TPA as would be taken with any other proprietary, internal or contractual document.
Trading Partner Agreements define, in writing, for specific data exchanges, the participating partners’ individual and joint responsibilities in stewardship, security, and other items essential for the effective exchange of information between two or more trading partners on the Exchange Network. The core value of developing TPAs is to encourage partners to clarify the appropriate and agreed upon use, ownership, type, quality, and frequency of data exchanged between and among partners. This process leads to an improvement in the reliability, utility, and security of sharing data on specific exchanges over the EN and helps meet partners’ business objectives and obligations. TPAs focus primarily on the information being exchanged, while other materials such as Flow Configuration Documents cover the technical means of the exchange.