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Top 3 Legal Concerns
for Agents at
Partners
Conference
October 2010
Newsletter
 I had the honor of being
selected as the telecom legal subject matter
expert (SME) for the
Channel Partners
show in Washington D.C. last
week. I moderated a roundtable discussion about
telecom contracts at the
Peer-to-Peer Networking
Mixer. Most of the
participants wanted to discuss the typical
concerns (evergreen, termination,
non-solicitation, etc.). However, there were 3
other interesting issues which stick out in my
mind:
-
One participant was a master agent who
warned about the dangers of signing an
agreement without the assistance of an
experienced
telecom
lawyer. He said his company had
been burned by a CLEC who took advantage of
the one-sided language in their agreement.
He highly recommended using an experienced
telecom
lawyer in the contract
negotiation process and called it “money
well spent”. As you might expect, I
completely agree with his position!
-
An independent agent was concerned about the
possibility of being labeled an employee of
a carrier he represented for income
tax/withholding and payroll tax purposes.
He said the state where he lives is cracking
down on independent sales agents from
different industries – the state is claiming
they are really employees rather than
independent contractors. I don’t think this
is a very big issue in our industry,
particularly because most independent agents
seem to represent more than one carrier or
master agent, but it’s certainly something
about which independent agents should be
careful.
-
A small agent who is new to the business
expressed frustration about the
affordability of obtaining legal assistance
from an experienced
telecom
lawyer. He wondered if there was
an association of small agents who pooled
their resources together to assist each
other with contracts. This is a valid
concern for which there’s no easy answer.
The consensus at the table, however, was
that this agent might want to see if it made
sense to align himself with a master agent
who presumably has more clout and financial
resources to negotiate favorable contract
terms with carriers.
Need
to keep current on legal issues affecting
telecom agents, channel partners and their
carrier suppliers? Stay in touch by
connecting with me on LinkedIn. My "Telecom
Lawyer LinkedIn Group" has over 125 members.
If you have a telecom
contract that you need an experienced telecom
lawyer to review or need help with any other
telecom legal issue, call
Ben Bronston - Telecom
Lawyer at 713-778-1000.
Ben Bronston - Telecom
Lawyer -
Copyright 2010
6300 West Loop South, Suite 395
Houston, TX 77401
713-778-1000
www.TelecomLawyer.net |
