ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the treatment of commercial agency agreements in competition law. The requirement that the restraint of trade clause be concluded in writing envisages something different from the memorandum of terms provided for in Regulation 13. Regulation 20 refers to the geographical area and customers 'entrusted to the commercial agent' and to the kind of goods 'covered by his agency under the contract'. On general principles of contract law, if the principal commits a repudiatory breach of contract, then if the commercial agent accepts the repudiation, the contract is terminated, and with it the restraint of trade clause, which will not be binding on the commercial agent after termination. In general, commercial agency agreements ought not to give rise to competition law concerns. There is no provision in English law saying that the Competition Act 1998 displaces or overrides the common law restraint of trade principles.
