We assisted Papa John’s International, an American pizza restaurant franchise, with all matters related to local franchising operations, including contractual work.
Our team was engaged in restructuring the client’s franchise relations in Belarus. The project concerned preparing a set of agreements aimed at 1) change of the franchisee to the subfranchisee, 2) assignment of particular rights and obligations and 3) substitution of the original subfranchise agreement by assignment. The restructuring was conducted because of a global transaction between the client (franchisor) and the franchisee. After the agreements were finalised we arranged signature by all parties and submitted all the necessary documents for registration to the local patent authority. The project was complicated by the following: 1) communications were carried out not only with the client, but also with its Russian counsel participating in the global transaction; 2) restructuring was untypical in the Belarusian legal framework; 3) the transaction happened during the COVID outbreak, which caused a range of legal and practical hurdles.
The client was advised by senior associate Marina Golovnitskaya as project lead, with partner Maksim Salahub and associate Yauheni Budchanka.
