A donuts’ franchise from Belgium (2023)

The Client

Our client was a franchisor Belgian company, with over 50 points of sale in some European countries, including France and Germany. The franchised stores sell variety of products to customers, such as donuts, chocolate, muffins, cookies, ice creams etc. The franchisor supported the franchisees with a variety of services, including training in sales, store management and local communications to develop sales and awareness.

The donuts’ market in Italy is very interesting, since no brand is yet positioned like a leader. For such reason, the Client wished to expand its franchise in Italy, mainly is some of the biggest cities in the north of Italy.

Being at an early stage of its expansion project, the client wished to have a careful legal review of its franchising agreement and disclosure document, that were used in other countries.

Our activity

We have carried out a careful legal review of the following documents:

• the Client’s disclosure franchise document. Such documents needed some integrations and amendments in order to be compliant to Italian Franchise Law. After having agreed with the client the final draft, we translated it into the Italian language, as prescribed by Italian Franchise Law.
• review of the Client’s standard franchising agreement, together with its attachments, according to Italian Franchise Law .
  Our review basically involved the following items:
  • obligations of the Parties;
  • duration, renewal, withdrawal and termination ;
  • exclusivity ;
  • e-commerce sales ;
  • non-compete covenants ;
  • entry fee, royalties and products purchase prices ;
  • applicable law and resolution of disputes ;
  • privacy compliance.

We explained the Client the need to adapt its standard franchise agreement for its expansion in Italy, not only under a legal point of view but also under a commercial point of view, in order to make it efficient and successful in the Italian market. This is a crucial point that is not always properly understood by foreign franchisors; we were proud to make it understood by our Client.

After all documents were carefully reviewed, the Client was ready to open the first two points of sale, in Turin and Milan. Others are on the way.

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