Court of Gelderland<\/b><\/p>\n
By judgment of 22 January 2014 (ECLI: NL. RBGEL: 2014: 377), the District Court of Gelderland reached a remarkable judgment for the franchising practice regarding the lease agreement between various parties associated with a franchise agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n In short, the court upholds the franchisee’s appeal for dissolution of the franchise agreement for breach of contract. Simultaneously with the franchise agreement, the franchisee entered into a lease agreement with regard to so-called cardio scan equipment. Although the lease agreement was entered into with an independent leasing company and it was expressly stipulated in the franchise agreement that the lease agreement would continue regardless of the termination of the franchise agreement, the court nevertheless reached a different conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n Because the leasing company, without verifying the actual situation, allowed a large number of lease agreements to be concluded within a relatively short period of time, it accepted the risk that the intermediaries involved would give rise to the expectation that this was a total package in terms of combination with a franchise agreement. An additional factor was that the leasing company stated that it was aware of the franchisor’s payment problems. The court therefore concludes that there are such related agreements that the dissolution of the franchise agreement can also lead to the dissolution of the lease agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n