Deal papers and endings
Termination agreement
The paper that ends a live contract by agreement rather than by one side serving notice. It fixes the termination date, settles what remains to be paid or delivered, deals with materials, data and access, and names the terms that continue afterwards — confidentiality, ownership and limits on liability usually do. It commonly includes a mutual release so that neither side can revisit the relationship later.
- In the catalogue
- Deal papers and endings
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Parties ending a contract early on terms they both accept.
- Companies unwinding a supplier or partner relationship cleanly.
- Anyone who wants an ending recorded rather than left ambiguous.
What you are deciding
- Which contract is ending, identified precisely
- The termination date
- What is still owed, and by when
- What is still to be delivered or handed back
- What happens to data, materials and access
- Which terms survive the ending
- Whether each side releases the other
- Whether anything may be said publicly
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 and the contract
- 2Termination date
- 3Final payments
- 4Outstanding deliverables
- 5Return of property and data
- 6Surviving terms
- 7Mutual release
- 8Announcements
- 9Governing 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.
- termination agreement
- mutual termination
- deed of termination
- contract cancellation agreement
- agreement to end contract
- wind down agreement
Questions people ask
- Why sign a termination agreement instead of just giving notice?
- Notice follows the contract's own rules and can require a period nobody wants. Ending by agreement lets both sides pick the date and settle the loose ends at the same time.
- Which terms usually survive?
- Commonly confidentiality, ownership of work, limits on liability and dispute resolution. The agreement lists them rather than relying on the original contract's survival clause alone.
- Does it always include a release?
- Not always, but frequently. Without one, ending the contract does not stop a claim about what happened while it was running.
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