Termination while clients are partway through

The people in the middle are the principal's problem.

Arrangements end by expiry, by agreement, or because something went wrong, and in every case there are clients partway through who did not choose the arrangement and are not party to it.

Their position is the principal's responsibility. The obligations to them, to complete what was undertaken or to place them elsewhere, do not lapse because a commercial relationship did, and a principal that treats them as the partner's clients will discover otherwise.

Planning for this at the outset costs little: a stated transition period, an obligation on both parties to complete current clients or to cooperate in transferring them, and a decision about who communicates with them and when.

Communication is the part most often mishandled. Clients who learn of a change from the partner, or from silence, form a view of the principal that a later explanation does not correct. The principal should be the one to tell them.

Where the termination is for cause, the temptation is to move quickly and quietly. The clients still need an orderly outcome, and the record of how they were treated is what an assessment of the whole arrangement will examine most closely.