Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
Stafford Rosenbaum Attorneys Present on Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law for State Bar CLE
Attorneys Deeley, Fisher, & Brodkey to present on Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law for State Bar Attorneys Erin Deeley, Matthew Fisher, and Isaac Brodkey will present “Wisconsin’s Fair Dealership Law: 50 Years and Counting 2024” to an audience registered through the State Bar of Wisconsin. The presentation will give an overview, key developments since 1974, the […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Open Issues
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law has been an integral feature of Wisconsin law, shaping the state’s economy for the past 50 years. To those protected by the law, the WFDL provides valuable security to their business operations and their employees. By contrast, the WFDL has been criticized as inefficient, vague, and protectionist by parties who […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Relationship with the Wisconsin Motor Vehicle Dealer Law
How the Wisconsin Motor Vehicle Dealer Law Relates to the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law A common misunderstanding is that the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law governs (only) automobile dealerships. That belief is not entirely surprising given that automobile dealerships are the most ubiquitous, public-facing “dealership” in the country. Earlier installments of Stafford Rosenbaum’s Wisconsin Fair Dealership […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Novel Applications
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law (WFDL), found in Chapter 135 of the Wisconsin Statutes, extends good cause, proper notice, and cure protections to an “extraordinarily diverse set of business relationships.” The WFDL’s litigation history illustrates the eclectic mix of relationships protected by the statute, including alcohol distributors, forklift resellers, custom log home distributors, water spa […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Preemption
How Preemption Limits the Scope of the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law In an earlier blog post on the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law’s excluded relationships, we discussed that while the WFDL is arguably the most expansive and encompassing dealership or franchise statute in the country, its scope is not unlimited. There are exceptions to its application […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Situated in Wisconsin
How the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Affords Protections to Businesses Based Out of State In an earlier post, we discussed when the relationship between two parties qualifies as a protected dealership under the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law and how the statute may apply to an eclectic mix of commercial arrangements. For a WFDL-protected dealership to […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Contracting Around the WFDL
Contracting around the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law As explained in an earlier blog post defining a dealership under the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law, the existence of a “contract or agreement, either expressed or implied, whether oral or written” is necessary for a relationship to be protected by the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law. In most business […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Adverse Actions
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law provides that a grantor cannot “terminate, cancel, fail to renew, or substantially change the competitive circumstances” of a protected dealership without providing good cause, proper notice, and an opportunity to cure. Wis. Stat. §§ 135.03-.04. Most adverse actions are easy to identify: a phone call terminating the relationship, a letter […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Excluded Relationships
Earlier in Stafford Rosenbaum’s Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law blog series, we explained that the WFDL extends good-cause, notice, and opportunity-to-cure protections to an extraordinarily diverse set of businesses, including beauty product wholesalers, lawn and farm equipment distributors, and even municipal contractors. That said, the statute and case law have created specific and limited exceptions to […]
Filed Under: Business Law Dealership & Franchise Law
New Food Delivery Service Regulation on the Horizon?
Last year, we wrote about a bi-partisan group of state senators and members of the state assembly introducing legislation to regulate third-party food delivery services in Wisconsin. Although that legislation stalled, an expanded group of state legislators has re-introduced a similar bill with some slight modifications. The 2023 proposed legislation seeks to create three requirements […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Remedies
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law (WFDL), Wis. Stats. § 135.01 et seq., is triggered only when a grantor takes or plans to take an action that has considerable impact on the relationship with its dealer. Whether that action is termination, cancellation, non-renewal, or substantially changing the competitive circumstances of the relationship, needless to say, the […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: Notice and Cure
The protections conferred by the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law extend beyond good cause. The WFDL expressly requires that a grantor issue a dealer proper notice with an opportunity to cure prior to terminating, not renewing, cancelling, or substantially changing the dealership. As discussed in our previous post, what constitutes proper notice turns, in part, on […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: What Is Good Cause?
Good cause is the core protection provided by the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law. In a dealership relationship covered by the WFDL (see our previous blog post that defines a dealership as it pertains to the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law), the grantor cannot terminate, fail to renew, cancel, or substantially change the competitive circumstances of the […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: What Is a Dealership?
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law is a robust trade law that prohibits “grantors” from terminating, failing to renew, cancelling, or substantially changing “dealerships” without good cause, proper notice, and an opportunity to cure. With a few select exceptions, the WFDL applies generally, and a wide range of businesses have successfully claimed protection under the statute, […]
Filed Under: Business Law Dealership & Franchise Law
The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: An Introduction
On April 5, 1974, Governor Patrick Lucey signed the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law into law, hailing it as the Magna Carta for small businesses. In his words, the WFDL was enacted to “protect the thousands of small businessmen in Wisconsin” who operate “filling stations, building materials and supply houses, lumber yards, sports equipment stores” and […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
What Wisconsin Wholesalers Need to Know about the Treasury Department’s Competition Report
Last summer, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14036 targeting “any unlawful trade practices in the beer, wine, and spirits markets, such as certain exclusionary, discriminatory, or anticompetitive distribution practices,” as well as “patterns of consolidation in production, distribution, or retail beer, wine, and spirits market.” The Executive Order required that the United States Department […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
Wisconsin Legislature Considers Bill to Regulate Third-Party Food Delivery Services
The use of third-party food delivery services has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies such as Grubhub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash provide customers with greater access to their favorite restaurants without having to leave the comfort of their own homes. But the use of such delivery services has also caused troubles for customers and restaurants […]
Filed Under: Appellate Law Dealership & Franchise Law
Wisconsin Supreme Court Decision Raises Fair Dealership Law Questions Beyond Municipal Liability
The primary issue in Benson v. City of Madison, 2017 WI 65, is clearly the question of whether the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law (“WFDL”) reaches contractual relationships involving municipalities. As discussed here, this is an issue of first impression, and the Court’s holding has broad implications. There are, however, additional aspects of the decision worth […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
Does Size Matter Under Price Discrimination Laws? Seventh Circuit Says “Not Always”
Late last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Woodman’s Food Markets’ claim that Clorox Company violated federal price discrimination laws when it ceased selling “large packs” of certain products to Woodman’s, while continuing to sell such large packs to discount warehouses such as Costco and Sam’s Club. A three-judge panel of the Seventh […]
Filed Under: Dealership & Franchise Law
Putting “Secrets” in the FDD: A Franchisor Nondisclosure Trap
The Federal Trade Commission mandates disclosure of “any material action involving the franchise relationship during the last fiscal year” under Item 3 of the Franchise Disclosure Document (“FDD”), which must be provided to all prospective franchisees. But as a recent opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit illustrates, this seemingly innocuous […]
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