Contract clauses, one at a time

Term and termination clauses in a contract

• Minimum term clause for services and retainers

  A minimum term clause commits both sides to an initial period, such as six months for a marketing retainer or twelve for a service plan, so the provider can set up and the client gets a stable price. The clause has to say what leaving early costs and what happens once the minimum ends, and in standard form contracts it must stay fair.

• Postponement clause: moving an event date

  A postponement clause keeps a booking alive when the date has to change. It usually lets the client move once to a new date within a year, carries the deposit across, and says what happens if the supplier is not free on the new date. It sits beside the cancellation clause and should be read with it.

• Survival clause: which obligations outlast the contract

  The clauses that matter most after a relationship ends are the ones nobody reads while it is running. A survival list is a short paragraph that decides which of them still exist the day after the notice takes effect.

• Term clause in a contract: start date, length and expiry

  Most disputes about a term clause are not about its length. They are about the day it started, because a start date tied to an event nobody recorded turns every later deadline into guesswork.

• Termination for cause clause: defining material breach before you need it

  The word material is doing most of the work in this clause, and most contracts never define it. Naming three or four failures that always count turns a judgement call into something both sides can check against the document.

• Termination for convenience clause: exiting on notice at a known price

  Ending a contract for cause means proving a breach and surviving the argument about whether it was serious enough. A convenience right skips that entirely, and the price of it is agreed up front rather than fought over later.

• Termination for insolvency clause

  This is the clause most likely to say one thing and do another in Australia, because a statutory stay has limited when it can be used since July 2018. Knowing which processes it still bites on is the difference between a clean exit and a void notice.

• Termination notice clause: what the notice must say to end the contract

  A termination notice clause decides whether a letter ending a contract actually ends it. It lists what the notice must state and who must sign it, so a notice that names the wrong clause, the wrong date or the wrong signatory does not leave the sender as the party in breach.

• Transition assistance clause for outsourcing exits

  The value of this clause is entirely in whether it exists before the relationship goes wrong. Nobody negotiates generous exit help on the day they receive a termination notice.