Start-ups

11 SETTING UP JOINT VENTURES

A joint venture is an increasingly popular way of doing business, especially in the high-tech arena. In this excerpt from a chapter in A Manager’s Guide to IT Law, Andrew Katz discusses the issues that you should consider when embarking upon a joint venture.

INTRODUCTION

A ‘joint venture’ is not a fixed legal term: it covers a multitude of different business structures from straightforward channel-to-market arrangements (like agency and distribution) to collaborative partnerships between two or more parties, which may include the formation of a new business, complete with its own staff, premises, branding, products, supply chain and so forth.

What all joint ventures have in common is that each party believes it ...