Buying and selling
Supply agreement
The paper for a continuing relationship where one side keeps supplying and the other keeps buying, rather than a one-off sale. Its distinctive terms are about time: forecasts and lead times, how prices move, what happens when volumes are missed on either side, quality standards and inspection, and what the buyer may do if supply stops. Where the goods matter to the buyer's own production, this is usually the paper that carries continuity and business-interruption provisions.
- In the catalogue
- Buying and selling
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Manufacturers and their component or materials suppliers.
- Retailers and food businesses with regular deliveries from the same source.
- Any business whose operations depend on one supplier turning up.
What you are deciding
- What is supplied, and to what specification
- How orders are placed against the agreement
- Forecasts, lead times and minimum volumes
- How prices are set, and when they may change
- Quality standards, inspection and rejection
- Whether supply is exclusive in either direction
- What happens if supply fails or is delayed
- Term, renewal and notice
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties
- 2Products and specification
- 3Ordering and forecasts
- 4Delivery and lead times
- 5Prices and price review
- 6Quality and inspection
- 7Continuity of supply
- 8Warranties and recalls
- 9Term and termination
- 10Governing law
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- supply agreement
- supply contract
- vendor agreement
- long term supply agreement
- framework supply agreement
- raw materials agreement
Questions people ask
- What is a call-off arrangement?
- It is where the supply agreement sets the terms and each individual delivery is ordered against it. The agreement handles price and quality; the order handles quantity and date.
- How do supply agreements handle price rises?
- Commonly with a review mechanism: a period during which prices are fixed, then a defined route to change them with notice. Leaving it open is how the relationship ends up renegotiated under pressure.
- What is a force majeure clause doing here?
- It names events outside either side's control and says what happens to obligations while they last. What counts as one, and what relief it gives, is exactly what the clause defines.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds