International Agency Contract

This agreement can be used to establish a commercial agency relationship where the parties are in different countries. Users should be familiar with the Australian Consumer Law which is found in schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) and any implications it may have on agency documents.

Definition of agent and agency

The term “agency” describes the relationship where one person (the agent) has an authority or capacity to create legal relationships between another person (the principal) and third parties — including the “power to make contracts to grant and receive titles, to make statements and admissions, to create obligations against and confer rights on the principal by doing the acts or the receipt of knowledge or notice”. The relationship between a principal and agent is one where the principal authorises the agent to work under the principal’s control and on the principal’s behalf, either in an express or implied way.

Appointment of agents

In a general commercial and trading context, agents are appointed with specific and actual authority to perform nominated tasks on behalf of the principal, in, or in connection with, the business of the principal. The main function of the contract or agreement appointing an agent is to define those powers and authorities which the agent may properly exercise within the scope of the agent’s business, and to restrict the agent’s authority in the manner intended by the principal.