Joint venture agreements

Success has many friends

If you want to expand your business or break into a new market, you may decide to join forces with another party. This you can do by signing a contract or by jointly founding a company known as a ‘joint venture’ to undertake your joint project.

There are three vital points to bear in mind if you’re considering entering into a partnership with someone else. You must:

know the other person or company well;
have a clear view of the purpose of your partnership;
think about way and means of terminating the partnership if and when this proves necessary.

Working together with someone else is inevitably harder than working alone. The more people are involved, the more difficult it is to get them all on the same wavelength. That’s why you must make clear arrangements so that everyone knows where they stand. Clear arrangements are even more important if a dispute arises that you cannot solve by mutual agreement (as in a marriage). The key questions here are: who has the last word? Who takes the lead if things go wrong? How can I get rid of a partner with whom I no longer see eye to eye?

In order to prevent arguments – or at least keep them to a minimum – it’s important to seek good advice during the process of setting up a joint venture. Careful planning is much cheaper in the end than the cost of resolving an acrimonious dispute. As they say, it’s easier to get into trouble than to get out of it.