III. Mandatory Pre-sale Disclosure
Pre-sale disclosure by a franchisor to prospective franchisees is mandatory. As is the norm in many franchise regulations in the world, a franchisor must deliver a written disclosure document detailing the franchised business in accordance with Article 680 of the MCC. A franchisor, however, must note that the MCC does not stipulate a bright-line rule on how many days the disclosure must predate the execution of a franchise contract. The code only requires “adequate advance” disclosure. In comparison with a bright-line 30-day rule in China’s franchise regulation, the flexibility inherent in this rule could potentially cause trouble for a franchisor because a franchisee could always allege that disclosure was not adequately advance. Therefore, a franchisor should keep detailed records of the date when initial negotiations for a franchise, the date of delivery of disclosure, and of course the date of contract. In fact, for those franchisors used to the old FTC Rule (with a tricky trigger disclosure requirement), this MCC requirement should not be difficult to keep up with.
Information disclosure under Macau’s franchise regulation, to a certain extent, resembles that of the disclosure requirements under the Chinese franchise Disclosure Guidelines. The MCC does not prescribe a rigid format for disclosure, such as the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular ("UFOC") in the United States new FTC Rule; rather, it only stipulates a few categories of information to be provided in a truthful manner to prospective franchisees. Here they are:
a) the identification of the franchiser;See Article 680 (1).
b) the franchiser's annual accounts of the last two accounting periods;
c) any judicial proceedings in which the franchiser, the holders of trademarks, patents and other industrial or intellectual property rights related to the franchise are or have been involved, as well as their sub-franchisers, which may directly or indirectly come to affect or render impossible the functioning of the franchise;
d) a detailed description of the franchise;
e) the profile of the ideal franchisee regarding previous experience, level of education and other characteristics that compulsorily or preferably he must have;
f) the necessity and extent of the franchisee's personal and direct participation in the exercise of the franchise;
g) the specifications as to the estimated sum of the initial investment needed for acquisition, installation and entry into functioning of the franchise;
h) the value of the periodic payments and other amounts to be paid by the franchisee to the franchiser or to third parties indicated by him, specifying the respective bases of calculation and what these remunerate, or the purpose for which they are destined;
i) the composition of the franchise network, lists of franchisees, sub-franchisees and sub-franchisers of the network, as well as of those who have left the network in the last 12 months;
j) the profitability of the franchisees' enterprises and the incidence of bankruptcies;
l) the professional experience gained, his know-how and entrepreneurial methods;
m) any services that the franchiser obliges himself to render to the franchisee for the duration of the contract.
In addition, a franchisor should also provide a sample contract (including relevant addendum) to a prospective franchisee in connection with the disclosure document. A failure to disclose information required in this article constitutes breach by the franchisor of the commercial code, which entitles a franchisee to annulment of the franchise contract. See Article 680 (3).
Relatively speaking, information disclosure as required in Article 680 is by no means expansive in comparison with disclosure in the United States and China. (A detailed comparison is beyond the scope of this post.)
--to be continued...
