There are many sources of advice for researching your market and assessing your export potential

ALISON STEVENSON

On the other hand, these can create a requirement to pay compensation to an agent on termination.

However, EU and UK competition rules may impact on the decision to appoint a distributor.

You should consider whether the distributor or agent is to be appointed on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, and whether the appointment should be global or restricted to a particular territory.

You should also ensure that you do not have multiple distributors/agents selling the same products in the same territory (unless they are non-exclusive).

You may wish to retain the right to sell some of your products directly.

If you already have good quality customers in that territory, that you wish to retain and for whom the distributor/ agent should not take credit, then a schedule of excluded customers should be included in the contract.

If the appointment is exclusive, you should consider on what basis you would look to terminate the agreement.

Termination could be based on failure to meet a certain number of months’ sales targets.

These are just some suggestions to help maximise your exporting efforts, but I recommend you always seek appropriate advice before signing contracts.