Browse our Commercial Contracts Services
Bury & Walkers’ dedicated and experienced commercial solicitors provide expert legal advice on a wide range of commercial contracts, helping businesses to become more profitable. with our commercial work.
A commercial contract is an agreement reached between businesses, and there are many different types depending on what the parties to the agreement want to achieve.
We can help you with the following:
Agency Agreements
You may need to appoint a sales or marketing agent and we can draft the agency agreement to ensure that the agent is appointed properly and complies with your requirements. We can also advise the agent.
The agency agreement will establish the scope of the agent’s authority, define its territory and confirm whether it has exclusive or non-exclusive rights for that territory. It will include details of the minimum term of the appointment, notice periods and whether it can be renewed. It will also define the products covered by the agreement as well as imposing some restrictions on the agent so that it cannot compete with its principal. It is likely to contain express duties to act in good faith, not to make secret profits, to account to the principal for monies received and provisions relating to marketing.
The agreement will identify the commission to be paid to the agent and how often that commission will be paid, as well as what evidence of sales needs to be provided to the principal. It will also specify the duration of the agency agreement.
Distribution Agreements
Similar issues may apply as with agency agreements. The extent of the territory or customer group will be identified and whether the appointment is exclusive or non-exclusive. However, the distributor may have minimum purchase obligations and may be subject to restrictions on the sale of competing products. The supplier will be under obligations to provide the products for distribution.
Franchising
You may want to exploit the goodwill attached to your business by setting up a franchise. There are many franchises in operation in the UK which allow business to exploit their goodwill in a cost-effective manner. The franchise documents are likely to include a franchise agreement and operations manual.
The franchise agreement will cover issues such as the franchisor’s obligations, the franchisee’s obligations, accounts, business name, any initial fee to buy into the franchise and continuing fees, advertising charges, termination and rights to renew as well as territory and exclusivity arrangements.
Standard terms for the supply of goods or services.
You may need to consider issues such as whether your standard terms are incorporated into the contracts with your customers, do you have valid exclusion clauses and how far can you exclude liability because not all liability can be excluded. What warranties and indemnities do you provide in your terms beyond those that might be contained within Sale of Goods legislation? It may be important to define the technical performance of your products and to identify how and when products will be delivered and from when they are at the risk of our customer.
You may want to identify the price and amount of goods to be supplied, potentially retention of title and how you might deal with export contracts
Our areas of expertise include
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