Franchise Law

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One of the biggest concerns that business owners have is dealing with a legal or business crisis. Whether it is a lawsuit, a data breach, or other sensitive issues, a crisis can greatly impact a business. In fact, it is not unusual for many businesses to close within a year of experiencing a crisis. Knowing…

You have built a successful business and perhaps even have multiple business locations that are thriving. Out of the blue someone says, “You should franchise!” And the wheels start turning from there. You learn about the expected investment, hire a franchise attorney and complete your Franchise Disclosure Document (an over simplification for the purposes of…

A blog post came to me after talking with an acquaintance last night. The acquaintance initially asked me a question but he really didn’t want to hear my answer. Instead, he wanted to tell me his news. Rather than listen to me he just wanted to talk. That was fine and I let him do…

I read an interesting article from Entrepreneur on the Key to Understanding a Company’s FDD (franchise disclosure document). It’s an article I’d recommend prospective franchisees read but they better be prepared to go deeper if they really want to understand a Company’s FDD. The author recommends checking three key sections of the FDD:

  1. Item 3

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Steve Sink wrote recently wrote a blog post on IowaBiz covering Why Deals do not Close. I recommend buyers and sellers of businesses to read the post. Fortunately, most of the deals I work on tend to close but from time to time there are issues with a deal or perhaps even litigation after a…

Accountant Joe Kristan of Roth & Co. has an informative post on the IowaBiz Blog discussing the dangers of using IRA retirement monies to fund a startup business.  In the situation described, a would-be entrepreneur took about $320,000 from his 401K and rolled it into a self-directed IRA. From there, the entrepreneur invested almost…

Franchisors often tout that they are selling an "exclusive territory" to a franchisee during the sales process. Franchisees generally want an exclusive territory because they believe this protects them from competition from other franchisees or the franchisor itself. But if you are a franchise who has been sold an exclusive territory, you better make sure…

 I read an interesting blog post on the LexBlog Network from Tom Crane of the San Antonio Employment Law Blog called What We Can Learn from the Government Shutdown. The lesson Crane preaches that bullying tactics usually do not work very well in negotiation and tend to invite an equal response from the other…