In October 2024 we reported on the case of Kompakwerk GmbH v Liveperson Netherlands B.V. [CL-2018-000802] which concerned the question of whether an agent selling access to end users in Great Britain to a third-party software as a service (SaaS) product should be considered an agent for the purposes of the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 (the Regulations). For the reasons set out in our post on that case, the Court decided that the agent did not.

As further detailed in that earlier report, in Great Britain the Regulations protect both individual self-employed agents and companies who act as agents and sell goods (but not services) on the behalf of another (their Principal). The Regulations are generally favourable towards agents providing many protections, most of which cannot be contracted out of (even by agreement) whilst an agency arrangement remains in place. A key protection for agents is the right to claim a potentially significant compensation payment from their Principal in most termination scenarios.

As noted in that earlier report, at the time of this case a government consultation, begun under the previous Conservative government, was ongoing to consider whether to bring forward new legislation to stop the Regulations from applying to new agency contracts in Great Britain.

The outcome of that consultation was published on 13 February 2025 and perhaps unsurprisingly the new Labour government has decided not to proceed with this proposal meaning that the Regulations will be retained in their current form without amendment and will continue to apply to new agency contracts in Great Britain which meet the existing criteria under the Regulations.

An interesting footnote to this response is that of the 86 respondents to this consultation only seven were Principals with the vast majority of respondents being agents understandably keen to retain the Regulations in their current form. Whilst a few Principals did comment that the Regulations did not allow for contracts to be freely negotiated between an agent and principal, there was not considered to be a sufficiently large body of evidence to suggest that was a major issue with a strong case for change. 

This shows the importance for interested parties to take the time to respond to consultations such as this to influence future change and regulation – a timely reminder for both AI developers and copyright holders that the deadline for providing responses to the government’s current consultation on potential changes to UK copyright law for AI training purposes closes next week.