Wholesale Supply Contracts

For a retail telco, upstream supply agreements are lifeblood. Cooper Mills works with telcos to ensure that their wholesale contracts work for them throughout their lifecycle.

Wholesale relationships do have a lifecycle.

• There’s the initial phase, when the telco is anxious to secure supply and start generating business.
• The honeymoon phase when it’s easy to get along.
• The mid-life phase when the telco needs the supplier to show more flexibility, as competitors increasingly pressure their margins.
• The renewal phase where the relationship is up for review and renegotiation.
• The wind up, whether it’s a trade sale of the telco’s business or a change in it’s wholesale supplier.
• And in some cases, regrettably, there can be a serious relationship breakdown at any point.

It has to be kept in mind, during the initial phase, that most of the others will certainly follow sooner or later. Cooper Mills is expert in helping telcos to establish wholesale agreements that can work for their entire lifecycle. We’ll pay particular attention to:

• Terms that may lock the wholesale customer into uncompetitive pricing
• Unreasonable and impractical billing dispute processes
• Payment security requirements that starve the customer of access to sufficient operating capital
• Impractical options and rights of refusal over the customer’s end user base
• Wholesaler powers to act arbitrarily, with no safety net for the customer
• Obligations to pass on to end users terms and conditions that are unlawful in consumer contracts
• Excessive exclusivity requirements
• Risk allocation regimes that are extreme and unfair.

Cooper Mills also understands that your wholesale suppliers are your most important business partners. Negotiations must be calm, friendly, productive but firm. That’s where our long experience in this industry counts.

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