Publication
“AI and sustainability - cure or curse?”
While AI can help resolve data issues in sustainable investing, it can create problems such as information breaches and inherent bias in data.
Australia | Publication | October 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic fallout has put a strain on many businesses. Franchisees and resellers are certainly not exempt from that strain and may quickly accrue considerable debts and fall in breach of franchise agreements or reseller or distribution agreements.
The question for franchisors is whether and to what extent they should adjust their usual enforcement and recovery procedures. There will be a number of considerations that franchisors should consider before deciding whether an adjustment to usual procedures is necessary. Franchisors should use the following as a checklist to assess their exposure to potential fallout from bad debt or franchise disputes and then devise an appropriate revised enforcement and recovery procedure accordingly:
When revising an enforcement and recovery procedure, it will be important to ensure that any temporary concession offered to franchisees, distributors or resellers are appropriately characterized as ‘temporary’ and cannot be misconstrued as a waiver of the franchisee’s, distributor’s or reseller’s liability for future non-compliance with the usual contractual terms. This will be especially important for franchisor – franchisee arrangements where the franchisor needs to preserve the right to breach the franchisee for non-compliance in the future if that non-compliance continues after any agreed concession period. Accordingly, any concessions made should be properly documented in a way that makes clear what has been agreed and the period of time for which the concession stands.
If having reviewed the checklist above you’ve determined that your business needs to revisit its enforcement and recovery procedures, please contact any member of our Consumer Markets and Franchising team to discuss how your enforcement and recovery procedures might be amended. We can assist with drawing up appropriate temporary variations or ‘standstill’ agreements to suspend certain obligations for a period of time as necessary for your network to emerge successfully from the current economic climate.
Publication
While AI can help resolve data issues in sustainable investing, it can create problems such as information breaches and inherent bias in data.
Publication
In this edition of Regulation Around the World we review recent steps that financial services regulatory authorities have taken as regards investment research.
Publication
We have had a new pension tax regime since April 6, 2024. The underlying legislation is convoluted and almost impossible for a lay person to follow, so you would be forgiven for thinking there was a lot to study. At the very granular level that is true, and your scheme administrators will have a lot of detailed changes to make to systems. However if you zoom out a bit, in many ways life hasn’t changed. We’ve done the poring over densely amended tax legislation for you. Here are the highlights: five things to know and three things to do.
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