F4知识点：企业躲不开的“关系”——代理关系

Agency Relationships

代理关系在ACCA F4的企业与商法中是一项重要的知识点，具体内容如下：

1. 代理的定义：

Agency— the authority of one person (an agent) to make binding commitments with third parties for someone else (the principal).

代理就是授权某人或代理商和第三方签订约束性协议。

2. 代理关系的形成 Formation

Agency relationships can arise:

formally (e.g. through signed, sealed powers of attorney or written agency agreements); or

less formally (e.g. through employment arrangements).

代理关系又分为正式和非正式的

3. 案例 Examples

The concept of agency underpins much of daily commercial life. For example, retail workers are the agents of their employers for the purposes of selling the goods in trade.

代理行为在日常生活中极为常见，例如，售货员就是被雇主雇来销售货物的代理人。

Company directors are agents of the companies they serve, collectively as a board of directors and individually if they are appointed as executive directors. They have authority to run the business on a day-to-day basis.

公司的执行董事就是他所在公司的代理人，他们被授权运行公司的日常事务。

Members of a business partnership are one another's agents—and therefore also one another's principals. The acts of a partner in the usual way of business bind all the others as a firm.

If the agent acts improperly, the principal will usually be bound to honour the commitment with the third party, but will be able to claim compensation from the agent for his breach of duty.

在商业合伙关系中，当代理人行为不当时，委托人就要对第三方兑现承诺，但是委托人可以追究其代理人的责任。

举个例子：

Illustration Agents and Principals

Petr appoints Andrei to act as agent for Petr to sell goods made by Petr, at prices specified by Petr. In breach of this arrangement, Andrei arranges to sell some of the goods to Tomas at a discount on the specified price.

The legal position will be that:

Petr must honour the arrangement with Tomas to supply the goods at the discounted price; and

Andrei will be accountable to Petr, because he has not followed Petr's instructions.

There are two key areas for consideration:

1. The nature of the actual or notional authority (power) of the agent to involve his principal in contracts; and

2. The mutual rights and duties of the agent and principal, and their liabilities to third parties.