2021 TSMA

36 2021 Taiwan Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association in these cases? Do any recently enacted national mandatory laws and regulations overrule certain legal clauses in existing agreements? How should one treat factual supply relationships, in the event no contract exists between a brand and its suppli- er? Certainly, this is not the place to provide substan- tial answers to these questions, which very much depend upon the individual circumstances of each concrete case matter. Yet, there is one important preliminary lesson that should remain in the focus of attention of the executive management of a company to master critical times: The lesson is the importance and value of a written state-of- the-art contract, which defines in a transparent and clear manner (among other topics) the rules that shall apply in the event of foreseeable and unforeseeable impairments of performance on either side of a supply relationship. Given my long-term experience, I am still some- what amazed that even major companies with long-lasting supply relationships are either not covered by written agreements at all in this area or only by (often conflicting) general terms of payment and delivery, or - quite frequently - by agreements that show significant deficiencies when it comes to the treatment of the previously mentioned impairments. One concrete example shall illustrate this: As already mentioned above, in Germany there is no specific statutory law in place that deals with a defi- nition of force majeure scenarios and how these shall be handled. This leads to a highly complicated - and also in many regards ambiguous - application of general principles of civil law provisions trigger- ing negative consequences for a company, since it remains uncertain, which rights can be exercised and which not. It has been my philosophy as legal advisor over the years to create solid and robust contractual platforms which will allow companies to operate in a fairly secure environment by mitigating risks, and this is not confined to Germany. International contracts in the supply chain management area show a specific international handwriting. Only a small portion of them are country-specific. To avoid misunderstandings: I am not in favor of overdoing and creating extensive and excessively long agree- ments. The risk assessment has to proceed from a practical point of view to determine where the main risk factors (‘hot spots’) are by looking at the specifics of each individual commercial relationship and at the role, interests and leverage of the parties entering into such an agreement. It certainly makes a difference if we talk about established players, who enjoy a significant amount of reputation and also bargaining power, or about a newcomer on