Malaysia legislation
Section 20
Section 20
Prohibition against discrimination
It shall be an unfair franchise and an offence under this Act for any franchisor to unreasonably and materially discriminate between franchisees operating a franchise in the charges offered or made for franchise fees, royalties, goods, services, equipment, rentals or advertising services if such discrimination will cause competitive harm to a franchisee who competes with a franchisee who receives the benefit of the discrimination, unless and to the extent that any classification of or discrimination between franchisees is—
(a)
based on franchises granted at different times, and such discrimination is reasonably related to the differences in time;
(b)
related to one or more programmes for making franchises available to persons with insufficient capital, training, business experience or education, or lacking other qualifications;
(c)
related to efforts by the Government or any of its agencies to promote variation in products or service lines or business formats or designs;
24 Laws of Malaysia ACT 590
(d)
related to efforts by one or more franchisees to cure deficiencies in the operation of franchised businesses or defaults in franchise agreements; or
(e)
based on other reasonable distinctions considering the purposes of this Act and is not arbitrary.
Payment of franchise fees or royalty