Reviewed November 3, 2026

Settlement Reporting Duties: The Clause Stores Sign and Then Forget

The remediation deadline gets the attention, but the reporting schedule is what runs longest in a typical accessibility settlement. Agreements commonly require written status reports at set intervals, sometimes an independent audit or a consultant's attestation at completion, and prompt notice if milestones slip, with obligations stretching twelve to twenty four months. A store can complete every fix and still breach the agreement by missing a report, because the report is itself a term. Calendar the reporting duties the day the agreement is signed, assign them an owner, and treat the completion audit as a deliverable with a lead time, not a victory lap.

Settlement day feels like the end of the matter. The payment clears, the remediation sprint starts, and the agreement goes into a folder. The agreement, however, is written as a schedule, and its longest lasting obligations are administrative: reports at 90 days, six months, a year, an attestation from whoever audited, a duty to flag slippage before it becomes a breach. Those clauses are the ones that survive contact with a busy year.

This is not a trap laid for the unwary; reporting is how the other side verifies performance without retesting monthly, and courts favor agreements that can be monitored. The risk is purely internal. Nobody's job description says settlement reports, so the dates belong to everyone and therefore to no one, until a breach letter arrives quoting your own signature back at you.

What reporting clauses usually require

A status report is typically a written statement of remediation progress against the agreement's scope: which templates and barriers are remediated, which remain, and the plan and date for the remainder. Some agreements specify the standard and method, conformance to WCAG 2.1 AA verified by audit, and require the auditor's identity or a declaration from the consultant. A few require user testing evidence or a maintained feedback channel with response commitments.

Notice duties are the sleeper clause: many agreements oblige the defendant to notify the plaintiff's counsel promptly if a milestone will be missed, sometimes with a short cure window. Used properly, that clause is protection, since a noticed slip inside the procedure is a managed event. Ignored, the same slip is a silent breach discovered at retest, which is the worst sequencing available to you.

Build the compliance calendar at signing

Extract every dated obligation from the signed agreement into a shared calendar with an owner and a backup: each report date, the completion audit window, any accessibility statement or policy deliverables, and the agreement's end date. Work backward from the completion audit by at least a month; audits have lead times, findings need fixes, and an attestation cannot be signed over open critical barriers found the week before the deadline.

Keep a remediation log as you go, ticket by ticket, with dates and the standard each fix addresses. The status report then assembles itself from the log instead of being reconstructed from memory and chat threads at each interval. The log is also your evidence that the work was real if the agreement is ever examined, by the other side or by your own next audit.

The retest problem, and staying fixed

Plaintiffs firms and their experts retest. Sometimes the agreement schedules it; sometimes it arrives as a new inquiry a year later. Either way, the site that gets retested is the current site, with every template launched since settlement included. A remediation that was complete at signing decays with each redesign, app install, and new checkout extension that nobody ran through an accessibility check.

The durable control is a release gate: no new template or major component ships without keyboard and screen reader passes on the money flows, and the quarterly mini audit samples the pages the settlement named. That is a modest process with an immodest payoff, because the second matter, arriving after you certified the first one fixed, is the negotiation you least want to have.

Frequently asked questions

What happens if we miss a settlement report deadline?

It depends on the agreement's terms, which is the point: many agreements treat reporting as a material term with a short cure period after notice. A late report with prompt communication is usually curable; a pattern of silence reads as non performance and can revive fees arguments or enforcement motions.

Who should write the status reports?

Whoever owns the remediation work, with counsel reviewing before submission. The report must match the underlying facts, since it may be relied on by the other side and quoted later. Keep the remediation log current and the report becomes a summary exercise rather than an investigation.

Does the agreement usually name a specific WCAG version?

Most current agreements name WCAG 2.1 AA, the version referenced by Section 508 and most settlement practice, though newer agreements increasingly reference 2.2. Remediate and report against the version your agreement names, even if your internal standard is newer; the contract's yardstick governs the reports.

When is the matter actually over?

When the last dated obligation is performed: the final report delivered, the completion audit accepted if one is required, and the term expired. Mark that date too. Until then the agreement is a live compliance programme, and staffing it like one is what keeps the end date boring.