Commercial end-user contracts2022-03-08T13:48:00+01:00

Enterprise & Business

Commercial end-user contracts

Commercial contracts may also relate to the sale of products and/or services. In this category you have direct sales and indirect sales agreements.

More about Enterprise & Business

Click further if you would like to know more about how we can advise you on the areas/subjects below:

Direct sales contracts are agreements whereby products and/or services are sold directly to the other party or parties. This can be by means of a B2B sales agreement, a B2C sales agreement, a B2B purchase agreement or a B2C purchase agreement. Unlike indirect sales contracts, in the case of direct sales contracts, trade in products and/or services takes place without the intervention of a third party.

Is the agreement for the purchase or sale of certain products and/or services? In this case, it is important to know whether the conditions are intended for B2B or B2C.

Examples of sales and purchase contracts are

  • Purchase and Sales Agreement
  • General terms and conditions
  • Framework agreement
  • Heads of Agreement
  • Secrecy agreement
  • Exclusivity agreement etc.

In the regulations concerning contracts for B2B, more freedom of contract applies than, for example, B2C. This freedom of contract applies in particular to entrepreneurs who employ more than 50 employees and where there is an obligation to publish.

The General Terms and Conditions apply to any agreement you enter into for the sale or purchase of products/services, provided that the strict legal rules of applicability are complied with. This type of General Terms and Conditions are specific to the B2B market. It is efficient to bundle the General Terms and Conditions in a single document and your company will have to implement a strict procedure internally to ensure that the legal rules of applicability are complied with. If not, the General Terms and Conditions may not apply to the purchase/sale agreement.

A non-disclosure agreement is often used prior to negotiations in which parties wish to cooperate and in which sensitive information is shared. Examples include customer files, financial figures, technical information, etc. This information, if used by the other party, can be harmful to your business. This information must therefore remain secret and the parties make clear agreements on how to deal with this confidential information, often including penalty clauses. A declaration of confidentiality can be one-sided or two-sided, crucial is whether only one party shares sensitive information or both parties.

This is where two professional parties regularly do business together for a longer period of time, where many provisions remain the same and where a few provisions such as the purchase price, payment terms etc. are variable. It is then customary to draw up a framework agreement where the non-variable provisions are often added as annexes. This can save a lot of time and money.

A continuing performance contract is a contract between two or more parties under which they have mutually agreed to perform certain services. The services must be recurrent or successive or continuous. The law makes a distinction between named and unnamed continuing performance contracts. Named long-term contracts are contracts such as an employment contract and a tenancy agreement and are governed by statutory regulations concerning termination by notice, for example. There is no specific statutory provision for unnamed continuing employment contracts, such as distribution agreements.

SPECIALIZED LAWYERS

These are our lawyers who specialize in this area.

More about Entrepreneurship & Business

Terminating an Agency agreement by the Principal

17 December 2019|

An agency agreement (“Agency Agreement”) may be terminated with or without cause and below you will find a practicable explanation on which steps need to be considered. Please note that terminating an Agency Agreement may be done through the Cantonal Courts or by taking extra-judicial steps as set out in article 6:265 of the DCC. The EC directive (86/653/EEG) is implemented in the Netherlands in articles 7:428 to 7:455 of the Dutch Civil Code (“DCC”), which is mostly compulsory law, which means that deviation by agreement is generally not possible and that these provisions are overriding. This article will only address the situation where the Principal terminates or rescinds the Agency Agreement. My next article will address the situation of the Agent.

The shareholders’ agreement: what if agreements are not kept?

28 November 2019|

In my previous contributions "A shareholder agreement to make your startup investor-proof" and "The shareholder agreement: some practical tips" I already wrote about the usefulness and necessity of the shareholder agreement. In order to avoid conflicts with, for example, future investors, it is wise to make good agreements about the cooperation. Not only agreements about the positive aspects of the cooperation, but above all agreements about what should happen if the cooperation does not go as expected.

Bill on Homologation Private Placement Significant change in insolvency law is imminent

14 November 2019|

A very important change in insolvency law is imminent. This change concerns the possibility of a debtor's offering a composition to creditors. In the current situation, there is only an arrangement for the compulsory imposition by the court of an arrangement with creditors in suspension of payments or bankruptcy. In the Bill on the Homologation of Private Agreements (WHOA), the possibility has been included that a compulsory composition without a moratorium or bankruptcy can be concluded. This will drastically change the possibilities for resolving problematic debts. This change is important for debtors, but also for their providers of capital, such as creditors and shareholders.

Go to Top