Regulation 19 of the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 provides that the parties to an agency relationship may not derogate from Regulations 17 and 18 ‘to the detriment of the commercial agent before the agency contract expires’.
Regulations 17 and 18 are those regulations which deal, respectively, with the entitlement of the agent to an indemnity or compensation on termination of the agency contract, and the grounds for excluding any such payment entitlement.
There are several facets and related points to be borne in mind, and which may be particularly relevant to any individual set of unique circumstances. However, the basic principle is that, and as the law currently stands, an agency contract cannot bindingly include a clause which provides for example that, in effect, the parties have agreed that the agent will not be entitled to any form of compensatory payment on termination (and be that to ‘compensation’ or to an indemnity payment), or otherwise that the agent will only be entitled to (and all other relevant factors notwithstanding) an amount which is less than they might otherwise have been entitled to under the law.
The above partly reflects the idea that agents deserve protection of their interests, being (as Lord Justice Staughton said in the case of Page v Combined Shipping and Trading Co Ltd (1997)) that the original EU Directive appears to be based upon a belief that “commercial agents are a downtrodden race, and need and should be afforded protection against their principals”.