You ended the collaboration with your French sales representative, or you are about to do so, and a letter from a French lawyer has just landed on your desk. It claims a termination indemnity equal to two years of commissions, plus damages for lack of notice, plus unpaid commissions, plus interest. The total often reaches several hundred thousand euros, and the tone suggests that French law gives your former representative an almost automatic right to be paid. If you run a foreign company doing business in France, this moment is stressful, but it is also the moment when methodical action saves the most money. French law does protect the commercial agent strongly, yet every euro claimed must be earned through precise legal conditions, and several lines of defence are available to a foreign principal that reacts quickly and with the right evidence.<\/p>\n
This article explains, in practical terms, what a foreign company faces when it terminates a French agent commercial<\/em>. It covers how to check whether your intermediary really benefits from this protective status, how the bill is calculated when you terminate, and how to reply to the claim, contest it where possible, and limit the final amount. It is written for business readers: every French acronym is explained, every decisive legal rule is quoted from its official source, and each section ends with the concrete step to take next. The rules discussed here come from the French Commercial Code and from recent decisions of the French Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation<\/em>), the supreme court for civil and commercial matters, including a published decision of 29 January 2025 that changes how the indemnity is calculated in practice.<\/p>\n Before negotiating or paying anything, a foreign principal must answer two questions in this order. First, does the protective statute of the French commercial agent actually apply to this intermediary. Second, if it does, what are the distinct sums the agent can claim and how is each of them calculated. Getting the order right matters because the most effective defences attack the qualification itself or the calculation method, not the principle of protection in general.<\/p>\n French law defines the commercial agent in Article L. 134-1 of the Commercial Code<\/a>, which states: “L’agent commercial est un mandataire qui, \u00e0 titre de profession ind\u00e9pendante, sans \u00eatre li\u00e9 par un contrat de louage de services, est charg\u00e9, de fa\u00e7on permanente, de n\u00e9gocier et, \u00e9ventuellement, de conclure des contrats de vente, d’achat, de location ou de prestation de services, au nom et pour le compte de producteurs, d’industriels, de commer\u00e7ants ou d’autres agents commerciaux.” In plain English, the agent is an independent professional who permanently negotiates or concludes contracts in your name and on your behalf, without being your employee. Three features must coincide: independence, permanence, and representation in the principal’s name. If any one of them is missing, the protective statute may not apply at all.<\/p>\n The distinction that creates the most expensive mistakes for foreign companies is the one between an agent and a distributor. A distributor buys your products in its own name and resells them at its own risk and margin; it does not act in your name, so it is not an agent commercial<\/em> and it cannot claim the termination indemnity described below. Conversely, a person you call a “distributor”, a “consultant”, a “finder” or an “independent sales representative” may legally be an agent if, in practice, it negotiates orders that you then accept and execute. French courts look at reality, not at the title written on the contract. The emails showing who negotiates prices with customers, the order forms showing in whose name the sale is concluded, and the commission statements showing how the intermediary is paid weigh more than any label. A foreign company that classified its French intermediary as a mere supplier while the person was in fact building a clientele in the company’s name often discovers the agent’s status only when the termination letter arrives.<\/p>\n A second frequent trap runs in the opposite direction. Some foreign principals, hoping to escape the termination indemnity, argue that the intermediary was in reality an employee, or the intermediary itself claims employee status to obtain dismissal damages on top of the agent’s indemnity. Both strategies are dangerous. If the intermediary was genuinely independent, claiming subordination to defeat the agency statute can backfire by handing the other side an employment reclassification with back pay, paid leave and severance. If the intermediary truly worked under your orders, with fixed hours, imposed reporting and no independent clientele, then reclassification as an employee brings the French Labour Code, social security reassessment by URSSAF (the body that collects employers’ social contributions in France, Union de recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales<\/em>), and litigation before the employment tribunal (conseil de prud’hommes<\/em>). The status question must therefore be examined honestly with counsel before any argument is raised in correspondence, because a letter that describes the agent as “our subordinate who disobeyed orders” can later be exhibited in an employment case.<\/p>\n Two administrative markers help the analysis but neither of them is decisive on its own. The agent, whether an individual or a company, registers on declaration with the special register of commercial agents, the RSAC (registre sp\u00e9cial des agents commerciaux<\/em>), kept alongside the trade and companies register, the RCS (registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s<\/em>), and appears on official company documents such as the Kbis extract (the Kbis<\/em> is the official identity card of a French company, issued by the clerk of the commercial court, the greffe du tribunal de commerce<\/a><\/em>). Registration supports the qualification but its absence does not destroy it: an unregistered intermediary who meets the three substantive criteria can still be recognised as an agent. Similarly, a written contract is not required for the statute to apply, which surprises many foreign businesses used to jurisdictions where agency protection depends on a signed agreement. The absence of a written contract therefore never immunises the principal; it merely makes proof harder for both sides and increases the importance of emails, commission slips and customer testimony.<\/p>\n The relationship itself is governed by loyalty. Article L. 134-4 of the Commercial Code<\/a> provides: “Les contrats intervenus entre les agents commerciaux et leurs mandants sont conclus dans l’int\u00e9r\u00eat commun des parties. Les rapports entre l’agent commercial et le mandant sont r\u00e9gis par une obligation de loyaut\u00e9 et un devoir r\u00e9ciproque d’information.” The contract is concluded in the common interest of the parties, and both sides owe each other loyalty and reciprocal information. This provision matters twice for a foreign principal. First, the agent’s disloyalty, such as secretly representing a direct competitor or diverting orders, can constitute the serious misconduct that removes the indemnity, as developed below. Second, your own disloyalty, such as cutting the agent off from information, starving it of stock, or contacting its customers directly to bypass commissions, can justify the agent’s resignation at your expense and aggravate damages. From the day you consider termination, behave as a loyal principal: keep supplying information, keep paying commissions due, and put every reproach in dated writing instead of acting silently.<\/p>\n Practical step: within days of receiving the claim, assemble the qualification file. Collect the contract and its amendments, the RSAC registration number if any, three years of commission statements, the order forms or customer contracts showing in whose name business was concluded, the correspondence on pricing authority, and any evidence of exclusivity or competing mandates. Ask counsel one threshold question before anything else: does this intermediary meet the three criteria of Article L. 134-1, and is there a credible distributor or employment counter-analysis. The answer shapes the entire strategy and the budget.<\/p>\n When the statute applies, the agent’s claim normally stacks three distinct layers, and a foreign principal should never negotiate them as a single lump sum. The first layer consists of commissions already earned: commissions on orders concluded before termination, including the so-called right to follow-up (droit de suite<\/em>) on orders resulting predominantly from the agent’s efforts during the contract even if concluded shortly after its end, plus any contractual bonuses and documented expenses. These sums are ordinary debts, proven by the commission statements and the customer orders, and contesting them requires showing that the orders were cancelled without your fault or that the customers never paid. Paying what is clearly owed, quickly and explicitly without recognising the rest, often improves the principal’s credibility for the phases that follow.<\/p>\n The second layer compensates the notice period that was not performed. Article L. 134-11 of the Commercial Code<\/a> sets a mandatory minimum notice scale: “La dur\u00e9e du pr\u00e9avis est d’un mois pour la premi\u00e8re ann\u00e9e du contrat, de deux mois pour la deuxi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e commenc\u00e9e, de trois mois pour la troisi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e commenc\u00e9e et les ann\u00e9es suivantes.” One month for the first year, two months once the second year has begun, three months from the third year onward, with the notice normally ending at the close of a calendar month unless otherwise agreed. The parties may agree on longer periods, but they may not agree on shorter ones, and any longer period granted to the agent must be at least matched for the principal. When you terminate with immediate effect or with an insufficient notice, the agent claims the commissions it would have earned during the missing months, calculated on recent average business. Notice damages cumulate with the termination indemnity itself, because they repair different losses: the commissions of the notice months on one side, the loss of future income on the other. A principal that documented a proper notice, served in writing and actually performed, removes this entire layer.<\/p>\n The third layer is the termination indemnity itself, the indemnit\u00e9 compensatrice<\/em> or indemnit\u00e9 de cessation de contrat<\/em>, and it is usually the largest. Article L. 134-12 of the Commercial Code<\/a> states: “En cas de cessation de ses relations avec le mandant, l’agent commercial a droit \u00e0 une indemnit\u00e9 compensatrice en r\u00e9paration du pr\u00e9judice subi. L’agent commercial perd le droit \u00e0 r\u00e9paration s’il n’a pas notifi\u00e9 au mandant, dans un d\u00e9lai d’un an \u00e0 compter de la cessation du contrat, qu’il entend faire valoir ses droits.” Upon termination, the agent is entitled to compensatory damages for the loss suffered, but it loses that right if it fails to notify the principal within one year of the contract’s end that it intends to enforce its rights. Note the second sentence carefully: the one-year notification is a forfeiture time limit (forclusion<\/em>), not a mere guideline, and it is one of the principal’s strongest procedural defences, examined in the second part of this article.<\/p>\n How is the loss measured. French practice commonly refers to two years of gross remuneration, computed on the average of the last two or three years of commissions and contractual bonuses, and many demand letters simply multiply the best year by two. That figure is a starting point for negotiation, not a legal rule: the judge assesses the actual loss case by case, and recent case law has clarified the method in the principal’s favour on one important point. In a published decision of 29 January 2025 (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 29 January 2025, appeal no. 23-21.527<\/a>), the Court held: “Il en r\u00e9sulte que la cessation du contrat d’agence commerciale donne droit \u00e0 r\u00e9paration du pr\u00e9judice r\u00e9sultant, pour l’agent commercial, de la perte pour l’avenir des revenus tir\u00e9s de l’exploitation de la client\u00e8le commune. Il n’y a donc pas lieu, aux fins d’\u00e9valuer ce pr\u00e9judice, de tenir compte des circonstances post\u00e9rieures \u00e0 la cessation du contrat telles que la conclusion par l’agent d’un nouveau contrat en vue de prospecter la m\u00eame client\u00e8le pour un autre mandant.” The indemnity repairs the loss of future income from the shared clientele, and circumstances after termination, such as the agent immediately finding a new principal for the same customers, must not reduce the assessment. The decision quashed an appeal ruling that had cut the indemnity to 10,000 euros because the agent had quickly found new work. Paradoxically, this ruling helps foreign principals understand what evidence counts: argue the value of the clientele itself, its attachment to your brand rather than to the agent, the short duration of the relationship, and declining commissions, instead of pointing to the agent’s new job, which the courts will now systematically disregard.<\/p>\n Several adjustments regularly reduce the headline figure in real cases. Commissions must be gross but only those linked to the agency activity and actually proven; exceptional or non-recurring payments can be excluded from the reference average. A short relationship, a clientele that remains essentially yours, or a contract in which the agent barely developed new business all pull the award below the two-year reference. Conversely, the principal that bypassed the agent, underpaid commissions or terminated brutally pushes the award upward and adds interest for late payment plus a contribution to the agent’s legal costs. Commission statements for the last three full years, the list of customers brought by the agent versus pre-existing accounts, and the history of commission rates are therefore the central exhibits on both sides.<\/p>\n Practical step: build your own calculation before answering the demand letter. Recompute the three-year average of gross agency remuneration, separate earned commissions from notice damages from the termination indemnity, and identify which customers the agent genuinely brought. This private valuation, prepared with counsel and an accountant, becomes the anchor of every negotiation and prevents the common error of bargaining against the agent’s inflated total instead of your reasoned figure. Foreign founders structuring their first French operations will find the broader setup context, from company registration to hiring, in our guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once the qualification and the calculation are mapped, the dispute enters its decisive phase: the reply to the demand letter, the available defences, and the choice between settlement and litigation. Foreign principals lose money here through delay, through admissions made in angry correspondence, and through settlement agreements drafted without an eye on French mandatory rules. A disciplined sequence avoids all three pitfalls.<\/p>\n The strongest substantive defence is the agent’s serious misconduct, the faute grave<\/em>. Article L. 134-13 of the Commercial Code<\/a> provides: “La r\u00e9paration pr\u00e9vue \u00e0 l’article L. 134-12 n’est pas due dans les cas suivants : 1\u00b0 La cessation du contrat est provoqu\u00e9e par la faute grave de l’agent commercial ; 2\u00b0 La cessation du contrat r\u00e9sulte de l’initiative de l’agent \u00e0 moins que cette cessation ne soit justifi\u00e9e par des circonstances imputables au mandant ou dues \u00e0 l’\u00e2ge, l’infirmit\u00e9 ou la maladie de l’agent commercial, par suite desquels la poursuite de son activit\u00e9 ne peut plus \u00eatre raisonnablement exig\u00e9e ; 3\u00b0 Selon un accord avec le mandant, l’agent commercial c\u00e8de \u00e0 un tiers les droits et obligations qu’il d\u00e9tient en vertu du contrat d’agence.” No indemnity is due where termination was caused by the agent’s serious misconduct, where the agent resigned without a reason attributable to the principal such as age, infirmity or illness, or where the agent assigned the contract to a third party with the principal’s agreement. Each exception is interpreted strictly against the principal, which bears the burden of proving it.<\/p>\n Serious misconduct means behaviour that makes continuation of the relationship impossible, not mere underperformance. Courts accept, for example, sustained competition with the principal for the same customers, diversion of orders, disclosure of confidential terms, or repeated refusal to transmit essential information in breach of the loyalty duty. Courts reject vague dissatisfaction, a temporary dip in sales, or facts the principal had tolerated for months. A leading decision illustrates the discipline required (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 12 February 2013, appeal no. 12-12.371<\/a>): the principal invoked the agent’s refusal, more than eighteen months earlier, to disclose the list of other companies it represented. The Court quashed the appeal ruling that had accepted this defence, holding: “alors que ce manquement, qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 commis un certain temps avant la rupture et dont la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 n’a plus fait \u00e9tat lorsque celle-ci est intervenue avec un pr\u00e9avis de trois mois, n’a pu \u00eatre de nature \u00e0 provoquer la cessation du contrat, ni \u00e0 porter atteinte \u00e0 la finalit\u00e9 commune du mandat d’int\u00e9r\u00eat commun en rendant impossible le maintien du lien contractuel”. An old breach, no longer raised when termination with three months’ notice was pronounced, could neither have caused the termination nor rendered continuation of the common-interest mandate impossible. The lesson for foreign principals is operational: document misconduct in real time, act within weeks, and state the misconduct expressly in the termination letter. A file of grievances assembled a year after the rupture, for litigation purposes, almost never qualifies.<\/p>\n Related to misconduct is the discovery of wrongdoing after termination. A principal that terminated without cause and later uncovers disloyalty faces an uphill battle, because the misconduct must have caused the termination, not merely have existed somewhere in the past. Conversely, a principal that already possessed the evidence but terminated with a long notice and polite thanks signals that continuation was perfectly possible, which destroys the defence. If audit findings emerge between the decision to terminate and the effective end of notice, take fresh legal advice immediately: in some configurations a second termination for misconduct during the notice period can still be pronounced, but the drafting and timing are delicate and the case law demanding.<\/p>\n The second defence concerns the agent’s own initiative. An agent that resigns, retires without health justification, or transfers its portfolio to a successor with your agreement loses the indemnity under the same Article L. 134-13. The boundary runs through the real cause of departure: an agent that leaves because you cut commissions, withdrew the best territory, stopped supplying products, or harassed it into leaving is deemed to have been constructively dismissed at your initiative, and the indemnity survives. Before celebrating a resignation letter, verify the preceding months: unpaid commission statements, territory reductions and critical emails are routinely produced to recharacterise a voluntary departure as your breach. A negotiated transfer of the contract to a replacement agent, properly documented with the outgoing agent’s informed consent and consideration, remains the cleanest exit of this family.<\/p>\n The third defence is procedural and often decisive: the one-year forfeiture. The agent that fails to notify its claim within one year of the contract’s end loses the right entirely, and French courts apply this time bar rigorously. Two refinements from case law matter enormously in practice. First, the starting point can be postponed where the rupture was concealed: in a decision of 2 February 2022 (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 2 February 2022, appeal no. 19-22.373<\/a>), the Court approved an appeal ruling holding that a sub-agent “n’avait \u00e9t\u00e9 en mesure de faire valoir ses droits qu’\u00e0 compter de son information de la rupture contractuelle”, so that claims brought by the writ of 21 April 2017 were receivable as filed “respectivement avant l’expiration du d\u00e9lai de forclusion d’un an pr\u00e9vu par l’article L. 134-12, alin\u00e9a 2, du code de commerce et du d\u00e9lai de prescription quinquennal pr\u00e9vu par l’article L. 110-4 du code de commerce”. The one-year forfeiture runs from the agent’s information of the rupture where the end of business was gradual and unannounced, and the related notice damages claim follows the five-year commercial prescription of Article L. 110-4 of the Commercial Code<\/a>, which states: “Les obligations n\u00e9es \u00e0 l’occasion de leur commerce entre commer\u00e7ants ou entre commer\u00e7ants et non-commer\u00e7ants se prescrivent par cinq ans si elles ne sont pas soumises \u00e0 des prescriptions sp\u00e9ciales plus courtes.” Commercial obligations prescribe in five years absent a shorter special period. For a foreign principal, the operational conclusion is to terminate expressly, in writing, with a clear end date, served provably: a clean rupture letter starts the one-year clock immediately and prevents the agent from arguing years later that it only just learned the relationship had ended.<\/p>\n Second, the notification itself needs no particular magic wording, but it must unambiguously express the agent’s intention to enforce its rights, and the safest proof is a bailiff’s writ (assignation<\/em>, the formal summons served by a judicial officer, the commissaire de justice<\/em>, formerly huissier de justice<\/em>) or a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt within the year. Docket control is therefore a genuine defence: when the demand letter arrives, counsel’s first reflex is to compute the exact end date of the contract and the exact date of the first notification, because a single week of delay can extinguish a claim worth two years of commissions. Where the year has expired without notification, the reply is short and firm; where it has not, the defence shifts to misconduct, qualification and calculation.<\/p>\n Two cautions complete the picture. First, French law, transposing the European agency directive (Council Directive 86\/653\/EEC of 18 December 1986 on self-employed commercial agents), treats the termination indemnity as mandatory protection: a clause in which the agent waives the indemnity in advance, or a choice of foreign law inserted to circumvent it where the agent works in France, generally fails to defeat the claim, so do not rely on contractual wording alone. Second, arguments about the agent’s status must stay consistent: the principal that simultaneously pleads serious misconduct by an independent agent and treats the person as a disobedient employee creates exhibits for both the agency case and a potential employment case. Choose the theory that matches the documents, and hold it throughout.<\/p>\n Practical step: reply to the demand letter within two to three weeks through counsel, in French, by registered letter. Acknowledge nothing on quantum, reserve all rights, request the missing exhibits (commission breakdown, customer list, proof of timely notification), state your preliminary position on qualification and time limits, and propose without prejudice a without-admission settlement discussion. This single letter stops interest-fuelled escalation, frames the negotiation around your valuation, and preserves every defence.<\/p>\n Most agency disputes settle, and settlement at the right moment is usually the foreign principal’s best financial outcome. Litigation before the French courts commonly spans twelve to twenty-four months at first instance, with enforcement complications and management distraction added for a company based abroad, while the meter of statutory interest and legal costs keeps running. Settlement makes sense once the qualification file is complete, the time-bar defence is tested, and both sides have exchanged commission figures, because only then does the negotiation range reflect legal reality rather than posturing. A well-drafted settlement records the exact sums allocated to earned commissions, notice damages and termination indemnity, which matters for tax treatment and for social contribution audits, includes mutual waivers covering the agency relationship and any related employment claim, organises payment in documented instalments with proof of receipt, and settles the fate of pending customer orders and post-termination commissions so that no second dispute germinates. Rushing into mediation before knowing whether the one-year forfeiture has already killed the claim is the classic way to pay for nothing.<\/p>\n Where settlement fails, the litigation roadmap is predictable. The agent sues for earned commissions, notice damages and the termination indemnity, often with provisional claims and interest from the writ. The principal defends on qualification, forfeiture, misconduct and calculation, and counterclaims where funded, for example for commission overpayments, customer diversion or breach of the duty to inform. Evidence decides these cases: commission statements, customer origination records, dated misconduct correspondence, and the termination letter itself. Expert assessment of the clientele’s value is sometimes ordered, and the 2025 decision quoted above now frames that exercise around the loss of future income from the shared clientele rather than the agent’s subsequent career. Foreign companies should budget realistically, and ensure that a French-speaking decision-maker with authority is available for hearings and settlement conferences, and secure translations of key exhibits early, because procedural deadlines do not wait for headquarters.<\/p>\n Win or lose the current dispute, the next distribution contract in France deserves a complete rewrite, because prevention costs a fraction of the indemnity. Put the relationship in a detailed written agreement that states plainly whether the intermediary acts in your name as an agent or buys and resells as a distributor, and aligns commercial reality with that choice: pricing authority, order acceptance, invoicing, stock risk and customer ownership must match the label. Define the commission base precisely, list what is included and excluded, organise monthly statements with a verification procedure, and cap or schedule the right to follow-up commissions after termination. Calibrate notice to the relationship’s value, remembering that longer notice is permitted while shorter-than-statutory notice is void, and serve every termination in writing with proof of receipt and an unambiguous end date so the one-year clock starts cleanly. Insert reporting duties, audit rights and an express duty to disclose competing mandates, which create the paper trail a future misconduct defence requires. Finally, align the contract with the applicable European framework and have jurisdiction and governing-law clauses reviewed for the specific case of an agent working in France, where mandatory protection limits contractual freedom.<\/p>\n One administrative reflex is worth institutionalising: monitor the RSAC registration of your agents, keep commission records for at least five years to match the commercial prescription period, and diary every termination date with the one-year notification deadline. Companies that do this transform each future rupture from a crisis into a managed file. And when the current dispute is behind you, consider whether the distribution model itself should evolve: a French subsidiary employing its own salesforce, a genuine buy-and-resell distributorship, or a shorter tested agency with clear targets may serve expansion better than replicating the contract that just produced litigation.<\/p>\n Practical step: commission a contract template review before recruiting the replacement. The review should cover qualification, commission mechanics, notice, post-termination duties, evidence preservation and dispute clauses as one coherent package, and it should be completed before the new intermediary contacts a single customer. The cost is modest; the saving is the next two years of commissions.<\/p>\n A French commercial agent’s termination claim follows a logic that is protective but not automatic. The intermediary must first qualify as an independent representative acting in the principal’s name; the principal must then face three distinct layers of potential liability, earned commissions, notice damages and the termination indemnity measured by the loss of future income from the shared clientele; and the agent must have notified its claim within one year of the contract’s end. At each of these three stages the foreign principal holds genuine defences, from distributor qualification to serious misconduct proven in real time to forfeiture, and the 2025 case law has clarified that post-termination circumstances neither create nor reduce the indemnity. The companies that pay the least are those that terminate expressly and in writing, answer the demand letter quickly through counsel without admitting quantum, value the claim independently, and negotiate or litigate from documents rather than impressions. Treat the current claim with that discipline, and rewrite the next contract before the next first customer, and the French market remains what it should be for a foreign business: an opportunity managed with clear rules, not a trap discovered at the price of two years of commissions.<\/p>\n Telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from the firm. We can review your French agency contract, the termination letter and the agent’s claim with you, and prepare your reply before the deadlines expire. Call Ma\u00eetre Reda Kohen at +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a>. Contact the firm<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your French agent claims two years of commissions after termination. A foreign principal’s guide to notice damages, the L.134-12 indemnity, serious misconduct, the one-year time bar and settlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":16275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kj_source_type":"","_kj_official_id":"","_kj_official_url":"","_kj_judilibre_id":"","_kj_jur":"","_kj_lieu":"","_kj_chambre":"","_kj_rg":"","_kj_date":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[80314,80313],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2120770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decryptage","category-doing-business-in-france"],"yoast_head":"\nI. You Have Just Terminated Your French Sales Representative: What You May Owe and What to Check First<\/h2>\n
A. Is Your French Intermediary Really an Agent Commercial Under French Law<\/h3>\n
B. How Much Can Your Former Agent Claim: Unpaid Commissions, Notice Damages and the Termination Indemnity<\/h3>\n
II. Your Former Agent Demands Two Years of Commissions: How to Reply, Contest and Limit the Final Bill<\/h2>\n
A. How to Contest the Claim: Serious Misconduct, Resignation by the Agent and the One-Year Time Bar<\/h3>\n
B. How to Settle, How to Litigate and How to Protect Your Next French Distribution Contract<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Need a quick opinion on your case<\/h2>\n