Distribution Agreements – Scenarios

Our team will help you to move past restrictions in your contracts that are impacting the smooth running of your business or impeding your growth plans. A change of control clause in a distribution agreement that was personal to the owners had the impact of restricting share allocation within the distributor’s business and potentially harming the long-standing relationship with the cross-border manufacturer. Our team assisted the distributor to effectively negotiate an amendment to the clause without triggering termination.

Our team also assisted the distributor to negotiate for an extra slot in the manufacturer’s production in line with their growth plans. (Link to Scaling your Business on the website)

The distributor client that we represented had exclusive rights to customer information. A customer could only buy directly from the manufacturer in special circumstances and on the customer’s request direct to the manufacturer. In that scenario, the distribution agreement provided for a specified amount of compensation to be paid to the distributor.

On renewal, the manufacturer insisted to have rights to all customer information including those that did not make direct sale enquiries with the manufacturer; the distributor heavily objected on the basis that it could undermine its exclusivity rights under the distribution agreement. Our team assisted with the negotiation of the agreement on behalf of the distributor which led to a compromise that the manufacturer could only have access to limited customer information from the customers that contacted them directly, and this access was time barred.