Business case
A major luxury brand had granted a subcontractor the exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute its products for a defined period. When the agreement came to term, the subcontractor sued the brand for alleged breaches of the exclusivity clause. Moreover, due to the COVID crisis, the contractor considered that it was notable to take advantage of all the benefits provided by the contract and claimed for additional losses.
A damages analysis can often appear robust at first sight, with assumptions that seem reasonable. Yet a deeper review can reveal material weaknesses in the underlying logic and show that key hypotheses are far less reliable than they first appear. Once those are stripped away, the analysis may no longer hold together.That was the case here: through our critical review the tribunal acknowledged that the claimant was not entitled to any compensation.
We were engaged by the luxury brand owners to assess the merits of the subcontractor’s claims. We prepared a report examining the reliability of the underlying information, the reasonableness of the assumptions adopted and the robustness of the methodology applied. Our detailed review demonstrated that that the overall approach followed was unreliable and the alleged losses were not justifiable.