McDonald's Contract Analysis - Essay Example

They range from supplies, transportation to customer service contracts. A dominant blank contract central to the operations of Mcdonald's is franchising. Mcdonald's allows other parties other than its founders to own and run Mcdonald's restaurants around the world. All Mcdonald’s stores are however subject to the regulation and control of the top management and the Mcdonald's Corporation. This means that the deviant practices from those of Mcdonald's Corporation are not acceptable.

Franchising ranges from buying and leasing to cooperating with Mcdonald's stores. The sale of goods and services is subject to laws that seek to regulate and control the underlying transactions. An essential law to account for is the Uniform Commercial Code (White & Summers 130). This code is a law that governs the sale of products and services. The code is made up of different articles, each of which addresses a specific issue before transactions that involve the sale of goods and services. In the Mcdonald's context, article 2 of the UCC is evaluated regarding Mcdonald’s blank contract in franchising.

McDonald’s employs three different franchising strategies. These are conventional franchises, business facilities leases (BFL) and joint venture franchising (Shaw & Lafontaine 1041). The first strategy is a twenty-year lease of the company’s stores. The second one involves a contract where the company sells its stores to potential buyers. Finally, the third strategy is the partnership of the corporation and its affiliate parties in a bid to expand and spread Mcdonald’s operations.

Article 2 of the UCC provides for the sale of goods only. The article does not provide for any service contracts. The critical aspect of this article is that a good is defined as an item that is identifiable and movable at the time of sale (White & Summers 237). In this regard, some franchising contracts by Mcdonald's come under the jurisdiction of this article, while others do not. Buying of Mcdonald’s assets that do not include land comes under the provisions of Article 2 of the UCC. However, the sale of stores or other assets that encompass the transfer of land from the corporation to the franchisee is not provided for under Article 2.

Any service contracts between the company and other involved parties do not fall under the jurisdiction of Article 2 of the UCC. Goods covered by the article include Mcdonald’s owned items that can be identified and moved when the sale is taking place. If the sale of Mcdonald’s goods fails to meet this criterion, then the sale fails to come under the jurisdiction of Article 2. At the time of sale, identifiable and movable goods in the franchising contract are provided for under Article 2 of the UCC.