ICC Model Commercial Agency Contract

What are the main features of this model? 

An international business transaction requires a precise and detailed underlying contract. However, it can be expensive and time-consuming to draft such a contract oneself. The ICC Model International Commercial Agency Contract responds to the market’s need for a reliable and equitable template, providing a set of clear and concise standard provisions to organize agency-principal relations. 

Commercial agency agreements are the simplest and probably most frequently used means of organizing the distribution of goods in a foreign country. 

Almost every company engaged in international trade has at least some agents abroad. Most exporters (whether large or small) must therefore face the problem of drafting an international agency contract. 

The ICC Model Contract on Commercial Agency is for parties negotiating agency agreements abroad who face a major difficulty: the lack of uniform rules. There is no internationally agreed uniform legislation for agency agreements, and so parties have to rely on national laws. Not only do these laws differ from country to country, but they do not take into account the international nature of the contract. 

This model contract is not based on specific national laws; instead it incorporates the prevailing practice in international trade as well as the principles recognized by the domestic laws on agency. The model addresses, among others, questions of sales through the Internet, indemnity, arbitration, and the principles of law generally applicable to agency contracts (“lex mercatoria”).