If you took a snapshot of all the laws and regulations governing franchising in the United States in 1979, and then took another snapshot of all the laws and regulations governing franchising today, you would find them very similar. While the rest of the world, including franchising, has been dynamic and constantly changing, franchise regulation has been, essentially, static.
A quick history lesson: Most state franchise sales and disclosure laws and franchise relationship laws were enacted in the first half of the 1970s. The Federal Trade Commission’s Franchise Disclosure Rule went into effect in 1979. Since then, there has been one successful effort to modify the FTC Disclosure Rule, in 2007; a few amendments to existing state disclosure and relationship laws; and new laws adopted in a couple of jurisdictions, namely New York, Iowa, Delaware and Rhode Island. A couple of states have also eliminated or modified their filing requirements under their state disclosure and sales laws. But, overall, a Rip Van Winkle franchise attorney, having been asleep for some 35 years, could wake up today and, for the most part, continue where he had left off. Moreover, he would discover, after only doing a little bit of due diligence, that the courts had rendered only a few life-changing decisions during this period.
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