Commercial Contract Lawyers in Cyprus

Contracts drafted by the people who litigate them

In short

Supply, services, distribution, agency, franchising and licensing, under Cyprus law.
The clauses that decide disputes: termination, notices, liability, forum.
Very few contracts are lost in court. Most were lost at the drafting.

Kleanthous & Platis drafts and reviews the contracts businesses actually run on: supply and services agreements, distribution and agency, franchise and licensing terms, terms and conditions of trading. The drafting is informed by the other half of the practice: we also litigate these documents, so we know which clauses end up in front of a judge and which never matter.

A contract review is a fixed piece of work with a written result: the risks in the document, the clauses to renegotiate, and the fallback positions if the other side refuses.

Send us the contract

For a review, send the draft and tell us which side you are. For drafting, describe the deal in a paragraph. Either way we reply within one business day with scope and a fixed fee. Email office@kleanthousplatis.com or call +357 22 680 330.

Where disputes are born

Five clauses do most of the damage

Each of these is cheap to draft well and expensive to draft badly.

Termination: on what grounds, on what notice, and with what consequences. Wrongful termination is the single most reliable generator of commercial litigation, and the cure is a termination clause that states its grounds and its mechanics precisely: see Commercial Disputes in Cyprus for what the fallout looks like.

Notices: how a formal notice is given, to whom, and when it counts as received. Cases turn on this clause more often than on any doctrine.

Payment: due dates, interest, and what happens on default, written so that an unpaid invoice becomes an enforceable debt rather than a discussion.

Liability: caps and exclusions that reflect the deal's real economics. Between businesses, Cyprus law leaves such clauses largely to the contract: there is no general statute cutting them down, and the consumer rules on unfair terms do not apply between traders. The discipline comes from interpretation, courts read exclusion clauses narrowly against those who rely on them, and from the limits of legality: a clause that purports to excuse fraud should not be expected to survive. So the clause is drafted to be enforced, not merely to impress.

Forum: court or arbitration, and where. The clause is chosen for this deal, this counterparty and these likely assets, never copied from the last contract.

Foreign templates, Cyprus deals

What travels and what does not

An English or American template is a starting point, not an answer.

Businesses routinely sign foreign-law templates for relationships performed in Cyprus. Much of it travels; some of it does not, and some local rules apply regardless of the law the parties chose. The review names what actually changes for a Cyprus performance: the mandatory local rules that apply regardless of the chosen law, under the European rules on governing law, the forum's overriding provisions cannot be contracted out of, and in Cyprus that includes employment termination protection, the commercial agent's termination rights, and the rules protecting employees when a business changes hands, the clauses that assume foreign procedures, and the enforcement question, because a beautiful judgment under a foreign clause still has to reach assets, and that has its own page: Cross-Border Litigation in Cyprus.

Distribution and agency

The relationship the statute rewrites

Here the template is not just imperfect. It can be overridden.

Distribution and agency look alike commercially and behave differently legally. The commercial agent is protected by statute, the Commercial Agents Law of 1992, and its core cannot be written away: on termination the agent can claim an indemnity of up to a year's remuneration, averaged over the last five years, or compensation for the damage the termination caused, and any clause derogating from these rights to the agent's detriment is simply ineffective. The rights are lost unless the agent notifies the principal within a year of termination, and minimum notice periods, rising with the length of the relationship, cannot be shortened. A principal who plans an exit without pricing this in discovers the difference at the worst moment.

Before signing or terminating either kind of relationship, the classification question is answered first, because everything else follows from it.

Terms of trading

The contract you use a hundred times

Standard terms earn their drafting fee on every order.

For businesses selling repeatedly, the standard terms and the way they are incorporated, on the order, the invoice, the website, decide whether the terms apply at all. The battle of forms is won at the process level, not in court, and we set the process up together with the document.

Common questions

Is an email exchange a binding contract in Cyprus?

It can be. Contract formation does not generally require a formal document, which is precisely why trading relationships need written terms that are properly incorporated: without them, the contract exists but its content is an argument.

Are electronic signatures valid?

Yes, under the European eIDAS framework, which applies directly in Cyprus. A qualified electronic signature has the same legal effect as a handwritten one, and even a simple electronic signature cannot be denied effect merely because it is electronic: its weight is a question of proof. For most commercial contracts the practical question is therefore process, not validity. The exceptions are documents with their own form requirements, land transfers, wills, documents that must be sworn, and we flag those before signing.

Does the contract have to be in Greek?

No. Commercial contracts in Cyprus are routinely in English, and English-language contracts are litigated here daily. What matters is that both sides understood what they signed, and that the language of the contract matches the language of the evidence the relationship will generate.

What does a review cost?

A fixed fee, quoted when we see the document's length and the deal's shape, with the written report included. If the review shows the contract is fine, the report says so in one page.

Who leads this work

Between them the partners bring more than 40 years of practice in Cyprus. Every matter is run by one of them.

Andreas Kleanthous

Partner

Litigation, personal injury and insurance claims, debt recovery, administrative law, real estate, wills and probate.

Klitos Platis

Partner

Litigation, corporate and commercial matters, property and construction, including pleadings, interim applications and trial preparation.

Written on this subject

Getting Paid for Work Done: Certificates, Retention and Claims Without an Agreed Price

Commercial

Enforcing Foreign Judgments and Arbitral Awards in Cyprus

Litigation

When an AI System Causes Loss: Liability, Data Protection and Contracts

Commercial

All our writing is on the writing index. Related: Litigation & Debt Recovery, Restructuring & Insolvency and Private Client.

Before instructing, send us the invoice, contract or loan documents and a short history of the debt. Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia. Telephone +357 22 680 330, office@kleanthousplatis.com or klitos@kleanthousplatis.com.

Request a consultation

Tell us briefly how we may assist

A few sentences is enough: which property, what stage the transaction has reached, and any date that matters. We reply within one business day. Please do not send confidential documents until we confirm we can act.

Request a consultation

Or write to us directly at office@kleanthousplatis.com, or call +357 22 680 330.