Choosing your Distribution Agreement

A distribution agreement is an agreement between two parties whereby one party (the supplier) agrees to supply products to the other (the distributor), which the distributor will distribute. It is very common for distribution rights to be granted in relation to a particular territory or market.

The agreement templates are designed for use in relation to territorially-based distributorships within the EU irrespective of the location of the supplier. They may be adapted for use outside the EU by a suitably qualified lawyer.

You will need an exclusive distribution agreement if the arrangement you wish to document is territorially exclusive (i.e. the distributor will be the only person permitted to distribute the products in the territory). You should use one of the non-exclusive distribution agreement templates where a non-exclusive territory has been grated by the supplier (i.e. there may be a number of distributors covering the same territory). Note that the exclusive distribution agreement templates contain minimum performance obligations; the non-exclusive agreement templates do not.

Both the exclusive and non-exclusive documents come in two flavours: basic and premium. If you need a detailed document, you should consider our premium distribution agreement templates. In addition to the terms contained in the basic documents, the premium documents include optional provisions covering: a trade mark licence, confidentiality obligations, forecasting, after-sales support, intellectual property infringements, data protection, publicity and non-solicitation.

All of our distribution agreement templates include optional "terms and conditions of supply" which specify the detailed terms upon which products will be supplied (such as delivery responsibilities, and passage of risk and title). Alternatively, you might like to incorporate your own terms and conditions of supply as an annex to the main distribution agreement.