{"id":52,"date":"2016-03-29T15:07:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T19:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/?p=52"},"modified":"2016-10-26T10:10:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:10:23","slug":"two-lessons-to-avoid-a-franchise-price-discriminationdistribution-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/2016\/03\/29\/two-lessons-to-avoid-a-franchise-price-discriminationdistribution-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Lessons to Avoid a Franchise Price Discrimination\/Distribution Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By: Sheila Raftery Wiggins<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Design business practices by incorporating the lessons offered by other parties\u2019 lawsuits. The lessons from a recent franchise\/commodity distribution federal court case are that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Watch forecasting statements<\/em>: A franchisor which changes its policy\u2014here, the rent policy changed\u2014should avoid making representations regarding the future of the franchise (such as, we will not <strong><em>sell<\/em><\/strong> the franchise agreements\u2014when an alleged plan to <strong><em>assign<\/em><\/strong> the agreement exists).<\/li>\n<li><em>Actions\/practices may trump the franchisee agreement\u2019s terms<\/em>: A franchisor\u2019s actions\u2014such as alleged manipulation of the delivery time of a commodity based on price fluctuations\u2014may prompt a price discrimination claim even though the <strong><em>franchise agreement<\/em><\/strong> <strong><em>grants the franchisee the power<\/em><\/strong> to determine their own retail prices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In New Jersey federal court, franchisees sued the franchisor regarding its:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>delivery actions<\/strong> \u2013 of allegedly manipulating pricing and delivery times immediately before the commodity price dropped,<\/li>\n<li><strong>pricing practice<\/strong> \u2013 of dividing the state into zones and charging retailers different wholesale prices and<\/li>\n<li><strong>alleged misrepresentations<\/strong> \u2013 of stating that the franchise agreements will not be sold, even though there was allegedly a plan to assign the agreements.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The franchisor sought an early dismissal of the lawsuit. The New Jersey federal court noted that many of the allegations are fact-based, and thus, the lawsuit may\u2014at this point\u2014proceed.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/sheilarafterywiggins.html\">Sheila Raftery Wiggins<\/a>, of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/offices\/newark.html\">Newark office<\/a>, handles matters involving complex commercial disputes, insurance defense, coverage disputes, financial fraud, and attorney ethics.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Sheila Raftery Wiggins Design business practices by incorporating the lessons offered by other parties\u2019 lawsuits. The lessons from a recent franchise\/commodity distribution federal court case are that: Watch forecasting statements: A franchisor which changes its policy\u2014here, the rent policy changed\u2014should avoid making representations regarding the future of the franchise (such as, we will not &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/2016\/03\/29\/two-lessons-to-avoid-a-franchise-price-discriminationdistribution-lawsuit\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Two Lessons to Avoid a Franchise Price Discrimination\/Distribution Lawsuit&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[112,110,113,115,19,114,117,111,8,116,109],"ppma_author":[191],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-alleged-misrepresentations","tag-delivery-actions","tag-dismissal","tag-forecasting","tag-franchise","tag-lawsuit","tag-lawsuits","tag-pricing-practice","tag-sheila-raftery-wiggins","tag-statements","tag-watch-forecasting-statements"],"authors":[{"term_id":191,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/franchiselaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}