Legal Articles & Insights

United Kingdom: A demand letter is not better because it sounds harsher. Its value is clarity on facts, contract, amount, deadline and credible next steps. Aggressive wording without quantified claims and evidence reduces leverage.

United Kingdom: A brand may demand targets while being unable to supply, or may allocate popular SKUs to DTC and other regions. A target miss can therefore reflect both distributor performance and brand supply failure.

United Kingdom: MOQs and sales targets often serve three purposes: forecasting supply, measuring performance and preserving exclusivity. The contract may fail to say whether a miss causes damages, loss of exclusivity, cure or non-renewal.

United Kingdom: Many disputes erupt at exit rather than during the relationship. A termination email is easy; resolving inventory, customers, trademarks, domains, warranties, deposits, receivables and in-transit orders is not.

United Kingdom: A distributor needs trademarks to sell, but permission to sell does not automatically authorize domains, “official” social accounts, co-branding, local registrations or placing the logo on unrelated products. Ambiguity becomes acute at term

United Kingdom: Consumers see one brand, but behind it may be a brand owner, manufacturer, importer, distributor and service company. Parts, labor, refunds and legacy orders must be allocated clearly or after-sales costs can consume channel margins.

United States: Arbitration clauses can look sophisticated but poorly drafted clauses create a procedural dispute about institution, seat, rules and tribunal composition before the merits are reached.

United States: When a brand is acquired, a distributor changes owners or the business moves to an affiliate, does the old contract follow? Exclusivity, deposits, customers, debts and licenses can fall into a gap if assignment rules are unclear.

United States: Whether an agent may sign, quote, discount, collect money or make after-sales promises often receives little attention until something goes wrong. The real questions are the scope of authority, what the customer reasonably understood, wheth

United States: Missed targets, unpaid invoices, price disruption, cross-territory sales or after-sales failures do not automatically justify immediate termination. The distinction between ordinary and material breach, cure periods and supply-suspension ri

United States: Commission disputes are rarely only about the percentage. More common questions involve signature vs. collection triggers, returns, global accounts, cross-period orders and tail commissions after a customer is taken direct.

United States: A product legal in one country may not be legal in another. Certification, labels, import approvals, environmental, safety, wireless, electrical, food or health rules vary. A clause making the distributor responsible for “local compliance”