a serious fault on the Agent's part;

Is the sales agent entitled to compensation when their contract ends? 

Article 1134-12 of the Commercial Code provides that the commercial agent is entitled, in the event of termination of relations at the initiative of the principal, to a so-called customer compensation. This is justified by the nature of the agency contract which is a mandate of common interest since the agent constitutes a clientele that the principal company will continue to deal with after the end of the agency contract while he will no longer be entitled to the commission and therefore to compensate him for the loss of this right to commission, there is a legal compensation of clientele: any clause or agreement to the contrary in the agency contract would be deemed unwritten, it is in article l134-16 so this compensation is really the rule in terms of commercial agency. 

How is serious misconduct against the sales agent characterized? 

Serious misconduct is the escape of the principal to avoid paying the customer compensation, so you can imagine that no one wants to disburse it when the relationship ends, which implies litigation based on the fault of the commercial agent. Only serious misconduct is exempt from the obligation to pay the customer compensation, this characterization is obviously an important litigation issue. 

How in practice do we manage this situation precisely when we seek to characterize serious misconduct? 

It is up to the principal who wishes to evoke serious misconduct, to characterize and prove it, therefore our role alongside the principal in this type of situation and to prepare as early as possible the termination of the contract so as to try to bring the agent to the commission of a serious misconduct, to prove it, to characterize it. 

What are the cases where we can talk about serious misconduct  ? For example, if the sales agent does not sell enough or little, is it a serious misconduct? 

The main cases, in fact, of serious misconduct are the fact that the agent abandons his activity, so it is not to not reach quotas it is to abandon the activity: that is to say to no longer do what is necessary for the representation of products, therefore for the systematic prospecting of a territory or a clientele, so the simple drop in turnover is not in itself a fault, on the other hand it is characterized when this situation results from the prolonged lack of diligence of the commercial agent. In the same way, the sale of products competing with those of the principal constitutes serious misconduct, the commercial agent may be multi-card and represent several products, but not products competing with those of his principal. 

What happens when the sales agent sells competing products? Can serious misconduct be held against him in certain cases? 

This is a case of serious misconduct, the only possible exemption for the commercial agent would be that his principal has authorized it beforehand. 

Apart from the two cases we have just mentioned: that is to say, the low sales results of the agent and the sale of competing products.  

What are the other cases that could characterize in litigation a serious misconduct of the commercial agent? 

There are many: we can think of the violation of a clause of approval of the successor of the agent; we can think of the lack of respect for a customer approval, if the customer accounts must be approved before opening; we can think of the degradation of the image of the principal by the accumulation of various negligence; the concealment of financial difficulties of the customers, to continue to take orders while we knew perfectly well that the payment of these orders could not not be honoured; the concealment of a parallel activity of the agent; the concealment for money of the agent who would also intervene at localisation on the occasion of the marketing of his own products, which is not unlawful, but the concealment of this fact is unlawful; the disinterest in the marketing of the principal’s products; the refusal to follow the instructions of the principal in the event of an imperative mandate; the physical or verbal aggression of a client, which is a cartoonish case but here are some examples of serious misconduct retained by case law.