agency

The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the principal) to create legal relations with a third party. Succinctly, it may be referred to as the equal relationship between a principal and an agent whereby the principal, expressly or implicitly, authorizes the agent to work under his or her control and on his or her behalf. The agent is, thus, required to negotiate on behalf of the principal or bring him or her and third parties into contractual relationship. This branch of law separates and regulates the relationships between: agents and principals (internal relationship), known as the principal-agent relationship; agents and the third parties with whom they deal on their principals’ behalf (external relationship); and principals and the third parties when the agents deal. In 1986, the European Communities enacted Directive 86/653/EEC on self-employed commercial agents. In the UK, this was implemented into national law in the Commercial Agents Regulations 1993. In India, section 182 of the Contract Act 1872 defines Agent as ‘a person employed to do any act for another or to represent another in dealings with third persons’.