When to end one early

The signals are usually present well before the decision.

Arrangements that end badly generally showed signs for a considerable period: outcomes consistently worse than direct delivery, recurring marketing findings, records arriving late or incomplete, difficulty getting access, and complaints that are individually explainable.

Each is tolerable alone and the pattern is the finding. Reviewing the accumulated record annually, as a whole rather than incident by incident, is what makes the pattern visible, and it is rarely done because each item was closed when it occurred.

The commercial reluctance is real, particularly where the arrangement is a material share of volume. That is itself a risk worth recognising: a principal dependent on a single partner has limited ability to enforce anything, and the dependency should be capped deliberately.

Ending early is expensive and it is cheaper than the alternative where the pattern continues, since the principal accumulates responsibility for everything done in its name throughout.

Where an arrangement is ended for cause, documenting the basis contemporaneously matters, both for any dispute and because a regulator examining the period will ask when the principal knew and what it did.