As the article states:
It has proved difficult to withdraw from the complicated web of business agreements the company established there 10 years ago
I know several individuals who own several franchises with Jets Pizzas and Dominoes. You may own the franchise but the corporation owns you.
They want you to offer specials of one pizza free with every one sold, you offer that special no matter how bad business is, even if you are currently losing money.
The corporation also dictates what the interior of your establishment is to look like as well as the hours of operation they demand you keep.
Bottom line is, here in the U.S., you are under contractual obligation to do what the corporation says or they can and will close you down.
As stated in the above article, those contracts are more complicated in Russia.
But it wouldn't surprise me if Corporate either shuts them down or stops payments to the suppliers of those franchise owners.........
Well corporate may shut them down, but they shut them down anyway. The Russian Burger Kings will probably find a way to stay in business independent of the US Burger King Corporation. It is their only alternative to going out of business.
“Corporate either shuts them down or stops payments to the suppliers of those franchise owners........”
How? They are buying the ingredients locally. They have no ability to shut them down if the local government won’t play ball.
“Bottom line is, here in the U.S., you are under contractual obligation to do what the corporation says or they can and will close you down.
As stated in the above article, those contracts are more complicated in Russia.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if Corporate either shuts them down or stops payments to the suppliers of those franchise owners.”
It can get interesting. For example, is the machinery used to cook their burgers imported from the West, or do they produce it themselves? If imported from the West, then does it have remote (web) control so as to be able to disable it? I could see having little ‘back doors’ in hardware like this, in the 21st century.
As to the main suppliers, they’re all obviously local, so they can be paid by the Russian management, which is very likely the case anyway, so nothing much there.