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Sorting Woes

 Funny and sad story about an Excel sort gone wrong. But there are worse things that have happened due to things gone with spreadsheets.

Barclays sent an Excel file containing assets they intended to acquire to Cleary Gottlieb at 7.50pm on Sept. 18, only a few hours before the deadline. The spreadsheet had 1,000 rows and 24,000 cells, including those listing the 179 trading contracts that Barclays did not want to buy. They were, however, hidden instead of being deleted.

A junior law associate at Cleary Gottlieb was tasked with reformatted the Excel file to a pdf document so it could be uploaded to the court’s website. Already working on a tight schedule, he was not aware of those hidden rows, which were visible again in the pdf file.

The mistake was only spotted on Oct. 1, after the deal had been approved. Cleary Gottlieb then had to file a legal motion to exclude those contracts from the deal.




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