In the author received a lot of parties to join the consultation, there are a lot of parties have doubts: "I signed a franchise contract has been noted, once the franchise contract is signed, the franchise fee is not refundable, then this situation can also refund the franchise fee?" In this regard, I handle a large number of franchise refund disputes on the basis of the following answer: According to the law, in the field of franchising, due to the franchisor and the franchisee there is a huge information asymmetry between the franchisee, the franchisee is often prone to false or exaggerated information into the wrong understanding of the franchisee, impulsive, to sign the contract, pay the franchise fee, and finally found that there is no franchisee to publicize the actual or to understand the real The franchisee since oh far after the discovery of far from the regional contract price, and often need to join a high franchise fee, the existence of a larger investment, there is a longer period of time to join the business, will make the franchisee is very painful, either choose to breach the contract, or to bear the pain to continue to operate and even sustained losses. It is because of the existence of this situation the law for the franchisee there is special protection, that is, allows the franchisee in line with certain conditions unilaterally terminate the contract, require the return of the franchise fee. So the franchisee said in the contract is in conflict with the corresponding legal regulations, and therefore often be recognized as invalid provisions. I have dealt with many of these cases, the court often breaks through the contract terms, the judgment of the franchisee to return the franchise fee.

Reference case:

Liu XX, Qinhuangdao XX Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. (formerly Qinhuangdao XX Food and Beverage Management Co., Ltd.) Franchise Contract Dispute Second-instance Civil Judgment, the judgment to return the franchise fee of 110,000 yuan.

The main points of the judgment:

Article 3.2 of the "Service Contract", "A and B shall not return this amount after signing", and Article 9.1, "In addition to this, no other damages shall be calculated, nor shall any other demands be made", are in essence exemption clauses. This is essentially an exemption clause. In the XX Consulting Company negligent performance of contractual obligations, there is obvious subjective fault, if the court acquiesced in the validity of the provision, it means to allow a party may use this kind of provision to avoid their contractual obligations and obtain the legitimate interests of others, resulting in the rights and interests of others are damaged. This agreement is not only unfair, but also completely contradicts the legislative purpose of Article 53 of the Contract Law, which is to invalidate exemption clauses "if the other party's property damage is caused by intent or gross negligence", therefore, the agreement of Article 3.2 and Article 9.1 shall be invalid. The court took into account that the Service Contract and the Additional Agreement had existed for one year, during which the brand resources of "Missing the taste of home" were indeed occupied by Liu XX, which should pay XX Consulting an appropriate brand fee, the court decided that Liu XX should pay the brand fee of 15,000 RMB to Zongfa Consulting and XX Consulting received the rest of the fee from Liu XX. The remaining fee of 110,000 yuan collected by the company from Liu XX should be returned to Liu XX to compensate for its loss.

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