The Georgian chapter of the book was authored by Mikheil Gogeshvili, lawyer at Mgaloblishvili Kipiani Dzidziguri (MKD), and Babette Märzheuser-Wood, head of the EMEA franchise group at Dentons.

The chapter starts with brief description of development of franchising in Georgia over the years, its future prospects and then continues with general legal framework effecting businesses in general and franchising in particular, such as market entry, currency control, employment, competition and data protection laws.

Attention is drawn to the issues of intellectual property regulation in Georgia since the effective protection of trademarks and other IP rights represents a cornerstone for a successful operation of franchising and affects respective decisions of foreign franchisees to enter the local market.

Georgia is a country with franchise specific legislation. Article delineates main aspects of applicable regulations, such as basic rights and obligations of franchisors and franchisees, pre-contractual disclosure requirements, applicability of mandatory clauses as well as affect of general law with respect to critical issues of termination, principle of good faith and dispute resolution.

The article contains a brief outline of tax legislation applicable to operation of franchise business, including activities of foreign franchisees. It ends with chapter developments on the market confined to alerting franchisees with respect to transliteration requirement for international trademarks used in course of advertising or on shop fronts.

As franchising offers to businesses multiple benefits and international growth opportunities, the Franchise Law Review will be of interest to legal practitioners as well as to business community, providing them with understanding of the challenges involved in international franchising and the regulatory environment within each of the countries covered.