I am pleased to announce that Bloomsbury Professional has just published the fifth edition of Commercial Agency Agreements: Law and Practice.  I wrote the chapter on the valuation of commercial agents compensation for this edition as well as for the earlier third and fourth editions.

The book examines the standard commercial agency agreement where an agent is self-employed and paid a commission on sales he or she generates for the principal as it is those agents that fall within the UK Regulations.

New cases since the last edition four years ago

As expected, the fifth edition has been updated to include several new cases since the previous edition over four years ago. 

From the perspective of compensation, the most significant case since the last edition was Software Incubator v Computer Associates, in which I gave expert evidence in the High Court in 2016.  By March 2019 the case was before the Supreme Court.  The Court decided to refer two questions arising from this case on the meaning of the Directive to the CJEU: (1) whether electronically supplied software amounts to “goods”; and (2) whether the supply of software by way of a perpetual and/or limited term licence to use it amounts to the “sale of goods”.  It will be interesting to see the CJEU’s response.

Quantifying compensation on termination of agencies

In a subsequent blog I shall give more details about the difficult issues surrounding quantifying the compensation due on termination and also describe the experience of giving expert evidence in the High Court in several of the commercial agency cases.

One of the hardest issues is how much to pay on termination

The quantification of commercial agents compensation is one of the hardest issues under the Regulations and the more guidance there is on this topic, the easier it will be for principals and agents to know where they stand and what offers to accept.

Charles Lazarevic

31 March 2020