Answer

Pan Middle East accounts are often problematic. Clearly the franchisor must be able to insist that franchisees service pan Middle East accounts otherwise it will be impossible for the franchisor to recruit pan Middle East account business. There is no legal issue here. The real question that needs to be addressed is whether or not the franchisor can properly make it less profitable for you to do work for customers of a pan Middle East  account. Clearly the franchisor has to make some money out of those pan Middle East  accounts. Generally speaking, the most appropriate way for it to make money out of these pan Middle East  accounts is by taking a percentage of the monies that you receive on them in the same way as it does with your national accounts and not by directly "creaming off" monies from the account itself. If, however, in order to get the national account it has had to pitch the price somewhat lower and this is the reason for it being less profitable to you, it would seem to me quite fit and proper.

The franchisor will undoubtedly face operational problems in due course if pan Middle East  accounts are less profitable for its master franchisees. With the best will in the world, master franchisees will give less priority to the less profitable accounts. This will in turn lead to friction between the franchisor and master franchisees.

It is not uncommon for pan Middle East  accounts to be priced differently to local accounts. Whether or not you should accept it, depends very much upon the reasons for the price differential and of course the volume of pan Middle East  account work you will be expected to undertake.

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