Export supply agreements for New Zealand exporters

Businesses often run into trouble here when they rely on assumptions instead of checking the scope properly. Quotes and purchase orders may record price, quantity and delivery basics, but they often leave major issues unstated. In an export arrangement, those gaps can become expensive once goods are delayed, rejected, damaged in transit, or paid late. A fuller agreement can deal with when risk passes, what happens if specifications are disputed, how claims are handled, and whether either side can suspend or end supply if the relationship stops working.

The legal risk usually comes from using a one-size-fits-all approach where the underlying facts are more specific than that. An export supply agreement commonly covers the goods being supplied, ordering procedures, pricing, invoicing, payment timing, delivery terms, title and risk transfer, inspection or acceptance steps, warranties, liability limits, confidentiality, intellectual property, termination rights, and what happens to outstanding orders. Depending on the arrangement, it may also address exclusivity, minimum order commitments, forecasting, packaging standards, and responsibility for dealing with returns, defects, or product complaints in overseas markets.

A useful export agreement depends on how your supply model works in practice. We usually need to know what goods you export, whether they are standard or customised, who arranges freight, when ownership is intended to pass, how payment is collected, whether there are agents or distributors involved, and what promises are being made about quality or timing. The practical working model can be just as important as the contract wording. If your business also collects, uses or shares information across the supply relationship, that can affect the clauses needed as well.

A template may be useful for orientation, but it often misses the operational details that decide whether the wording works for your business. However, export deals often involve commercial details that generic forms do not handle well. For example, a template may not properly address split shipments, inspection rights, currency issues, delayed delivery, product specifications, or the point at which loss passes from seller to buyer. It may also assume a legal or operational setup that does not match your deal. The work can strengthen your position on the issue in scope, but it cannot account for every operational fact outside the materials provided, especially where overseas legal requirements or local market rules are involved.

We can draft the agreement from a New Zealand legal and commercial perspective and flag issues that commonly need checking in the destination market. That said, cross-border deals can raise local law questions that need advice from a lawyer in the buyer's country, especially around product standards, import rules, enforcement, or mandatory customer protections. Where that issue arises, we can identify the point of concern and explain why separate local input may be sensible. This service does not include foreign law advice, tax advice, or ongoing representation in overseas disputes.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Export Supply Agreement service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.