Franchise Regulation
Paul Steinberg and Michael Webster, both franchise attorneys, have created a website for research on regulation of the franchise relationship.
Paul Steinberg's and Gerald Lescartre's article entitled "Beguiling Heresy - Regulating the Franchise Relationship" is reprinted on the website courtesy of the Pennsylvania Law Review.
The article is a comprehensive look at how the United States has regulated the franchise relationship over the last 30 years, the consequences of that regulation, and suggestions.
We are looking for thoughtful comments on the topics Paul and Gerald discussed.
One of the major conceptual difficulties with regulating the franchise relationship is the absence of a really useful legal model or paradigm.
Contract law and trademark law have been the two main legal tools used by franchise systems in order maintain orderly relations between franchisor and franchisee.
Unfortunately, since "proven business models" and "well-known trademarks" are not static concepts, contract law and trademark law have not proven particularly helpful for solving the corporate governance concerns in a franchise system.
We want to engage everyone involved with franchise systems, scholars, attorneys, and regulators from all jurisdictions to examine the franchise relationship to come up with superior solutions which don't rely merely on contract law and trademark law.
- Franchise topic:
The quest for certainty is useless and wasteful. Franchising is what it is. Improvements in the ambient circumstances will only come with investor education. The legal system has never been a competent band aid for lack of insight.
Government, in all its imagined majesty, is the worst resource when it comes to curing ills. There is the rare exception to that statement, but government is not reliable and should not be considered as a meaningful resource. Illustratively, while franchise investment laws have given us trial lawyers more toys, they have not served to protect the franchise investing public from its own analytical incompetence and stupidity. People still think that because they have an MBA and 20 years business experience as an employee of some company, they have the snap to separate the wheat from the chaff in small business investing. They don't, and any suggestion that they do is ridiculous. You can't legislate around ignorance and stupidity. But you can educate.
There is only one birth control pill approved by the Catholic church. It is a Saint Joseph aspirin held between the knees. It's the same with franchising. The law won't provide a cure. Only educating people to avail themselves of competent resources will move in the direction of cure.If you outlaw birth control, you need to operate orphanages. That is the franchise situation today - too many parentless children - people who bought into concepts that, in reality, simply aren't there.--
Richard Solomon, FranchiseRemedies.com, has over 45 years experience with franchise litigation and crisis management. He is a graduate of The Citadel and The University of Michigan Law School
Richard Solomon, FranchiseRemedies.com, has over 45 years experience with franchise litigation and crisis management. He is a graduate of The Citadel and The University of Michigan Law School