notwithstanding any applicable law or regulation

07:14 May 24, 2011 

It's not for me to judge if this provision was deliberate or "merely" a mistake. I've underlined this dubious phrase and inserted a short comment so that my client is aware of it and can decide themselves what to do with it. Thank you all for your contributions!

08:21 Apr 29, 2011 

Your research is very interesting. However, I suspect that you are being unnecessarily generous towards the author. Bluff and bullying can be very effective enforcers of contract against people who don't have the resources for legal action to defend their interests, or where the courts might not be trusted to give an honest judgement.

11:39 Apr 28, 2011 

I don't think anyone would write a contract saying that that contract holds above/in spite of the applicable law. I am not a legal expert, but I don't think the author of this contract is one either. The phrase gets 11 unique google hits, but 3 million copies of that phrase, with many in India and Pakistan. I think that there is a high probability that the author of the phrase is copying an error from some one else.

10:56 Apr 28, 2011 

I agree with your intuition about the intended meaning. As it stands, the provision is putting itself above "any applicable law or regulation", which would probably make it invalid, depending on the legal context.