OEM agreements for New Zealand manufacturing deals

Commercial understanding is helpful, but manufacturing relationships often break down around the details that were assumed rather than written down. Common pressure points include who owns tooling or designs, what specifications apply, who is responsible for defects, how forecasts and orders work, and what happens if supply is delayed or interrupted. An OEM agreement records those points in one place and gives the relationship a clearer framework. It can help you assess and reduce risk, but it gives you practical support while recognising that some outcomes depend on third parties in every scenario or remove all commercial risk.

It often covers the products being manufactured, technical specifications, quality standards, ordering and forecasting, pricing, payment terms, delivery obligations, acceptance or rejection processes, intellectual property ownership, confidentiality, warranties, indemnity positions, liability caps, termination rights and what happens to stock, materials or tooling at the end of the relationship. Some OEM arrangements also need wording around branding, exclusivity or information handling. The exact content depends on whether you are the manufacturer, the brand owner, or operating in a more mixed supply model.

We usually need a practical picture of the relationship, including what is being made, who controls specifications, whether products are custom or standard, how orders are placed, what quality checks apply, and how responsibility moves between the parties. It also matters how your business collects, uses and shares information across the supply chain, especially where drawings, customer data, forecasts or confidential manufacturing know-how are involved. Those operational details often shape the IP, confidentiality, warranty and liability wording.

A template may help you spot common headings, but it often misses the commercial mechanics that matter most in an OEM arrangement. For example, a generic form may not deal properly with custom specifications, acceptance testing, ownership of improvements, supply interruption risk or the way confidential information moves between manufacturer and customer. If the template does not reflect the real arrangement, important gaps can remain. Targeted drafting is usually more useful where manufacturing, branding, IP and delivery obligations are closely connected.

The timeframe depends on the complexity of the supply arrangement and how quickly the key commercial information is available. A straightforward OEM relationship with settled terms is usually faster than one involving custom products, detailed specifications, multiple parties or heavy negotiation over IP and liability. The next step is generally for us to review your instructions and any existing documents, then prepare the agreement around the main risk points. This service covers the legal drafting work itself rather than managing the whole commercial rollout.

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 OEM 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.