Vendor agreements get less attention than customer contracts — usually right up until a supplier fails to deliver. This issue closes out Q1 with the clauses that actually protect you when that happens.
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises has continued emphasis on the MSME Samadhaan portal for delayed payment disputes — a reminder that if your business is the buyer in a vendor relationship with an MSME supplier, statutory payment timelines under the MSMED Act apply and carry interest penalties for late payment, regardless of what your own contract says.
Vendor Agreements 101: The Clauses That Protect You When Suppliers Fail →
SLAs with real consequences, termination for cause defined precisely, and force majeure that doesn't become a one-way excuse — the three clauses worth negotiating into any vendor relationship that actually matters to your business.
Identify the two or three vendor relationships whose failure would genuinely hurt your business — not all of them, just the critical few — and check whether those specific contracts have measurable SLAs and a clearly defined termination-for-cause clause. That's a one-afternoon review, not a renegotiation of your entire vendor list.
Q: Our vendor's standard contract has no SLA at all — how do we even start that conversation?
Frame it as a two-way commitment, not a demand: propose specific, reasonable performance standards and ask what the vendor is comfortable committing to. A vendor confident in their own delivery rarely resists this; hesitation itself is useful information.
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Send Us Your Question →20+ years in commercial & corporate practice — in-house at BT, Oracle and Dell before founding AstraLex.