The worst of both worlds

There is a category of self-employed commercial agents for whom the law provides protection on termination of their agency agreements, loosely analogous to unfair dismissal rights for employees. These are “commercial agents”, and the protection is provided by the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 (SI 1993/3053) (the Regulations), which implement EC Directive 86/653 (the Directive). The purpose of the Directive and the Regulations is to provide protection for commercial agents, but there is an obvious tension between that purpose and freedom of contract in an otherwise commercial setting. This is explored in two recent Mercantile Court decisions concerning the agent’s rights on termination: Shearman v Hunter Boot Ltd [2014] EWHC 47 (QB), [2014] All ER (D) 144 (Jan) and Brand Studio Ltd v St John Knits, Inc [2015] EWHC 3143 (QB), [2015] All ER (D) 23 (Nov).

Agents

“Commercial agents” for the purposes of the Regulations are self-employed agents who negotiate the sale or purchase of goods on behalf of