1. A brewer shall not commit any of the following actions:

 a. Induce or coerce, or attempt to induce or coerce, any wholesaler to engage in any illegal act or course of conduct.
 b. Require a wholesaler to assent to any unreasonable requirement, condition, understanding, or term of an agreement prohibiting a wholesaler from selling the product of another brewer.
 c. Fix, maintain, or establish the price at which a wholesaler may resell beer, or to change, by any means, the price charged to the wholesaler after beer has been ordered by the wholesaler from the brewer.
 d. Require any wholesaler to accept delivery of any beer or any other item or commodity which shall not have been ordered by the wholesaler.
 e. Require a wholesaler without the wholesaler’s approval to participate in an arrangement for the payment or crediting by an electronic fund transfer transaction for any item or commodity other than beer, or to access a wholesaler’s account for any item or commodity other than beer.
 f. Require or prohibit any change in the manager or successor manager of any wholesaler who has been approved by the brewer as of or subsequent to July 1, 1995, unless the brewer acts in good faith. If a wholesaler changes an approved manager or successor manager, a brewer shall not require or prohibit the change unless the person selected by the wholesaler fails to meet the nondiscriminatory, material, and reasonable standards and qualifications for managers or successor managers consistently applied to similarly situated wholesalers by the brewer. However, the brewer shall have the burden of proving that the person fails to meet the reasonable standards and qualifications.
 g. Discriminate among the brewer’s wholesalers in any business dealings including, but not limited to, the price of beer sold to the wholesaler or terms of sale offered to wholesalers, unless the difference among its wholesalers is based on reasonable grounds.
 h. Fail to provide each wholesaler of the brewer’s brand with a written agreement which contains in total the brewer’s agreement with each wholesaler, and designates a specific exclusive sales territory. The terms of written agreements executed, amended, or renewed after July 1, 1995, shall be consistent with this chapter, and this chapter may be incorporated by reference in the agreement.
 i. Enter into an additional agreement with any other wholesaler for, or to sell to any other wholesaler, the same brand of beer or brand extension in the same territory or any portion of the territory, or to sell directly to any retailer in this state.
 j. Require a wholesaler to purchase one or more brands of beer in order for the wholesaler to purchase another brand of beer for any reason.
 k. Require a wholesaler, by any means, directly to participate in or contribute to any local or national advertising fund controlled directly or indirectly by a brewer.
 l. Require by a provision of an agreement or other instrument in connection with the agreement that any dispute arising out of or in connection with the agreement be determined through the application of any other state’s laws, be determined in federal court sitting in a state other than Iowa, or be determined in a state court of a state other than this state. A provision contained in any agreement or other instrument in connection with the agreement which contravenes this section shall be null and void.
lawyer at desk

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

Terms Used In Iowa Code 123A.5

  • Agreement: means a contract or arrangement whether expressed or implied, oral or written, for a definite or indefinite period between a brewer and a wholesaler pursuant to which a wholesaler has been granted the right to purchase, resell, and distribute one or more brands of beer offered by a brewer, or a contract or arrangement in which a brewer grants to a wholesaler a license to use a trade name, trademark, service mark, or related characteristic and in which there is a community of interest in the marketing of the products of the brewer. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Beer: means beer or high alcoholic content beer as defined in section 123. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Brand: means a word, name, group of letters, symbol, or a combination of words, names, letters, or symbols adopted and used by a brewer to identify a specific beer product, and to distinguish that beer product from other beer products brewed or marketed by that brewery or other breweries. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Brand extension: means a brand which incorporates all or a substantial part of the unique features of a preexisting brand of the same brewery and which relies to a significant extent on the goodwill associated with the preexisting brand. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Brewer: means a person who is engaged in the manufacture of beer for the purpose of sale, barter, exchange, or transportation, a master distributor, or a fermenter, processor, bottler, packager, or importer of beer, or a successor brewer. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • following: when used by way of reference to a chapter or other part of a statute mean the next preceding or next following chapter or other part. See Iowa Code 4.1
  • Good faith: means honesty in fact and the observance of reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing in the trade and defined and interpreted under section 554. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Manager: means an individual named or designated by agreement between the brewer and wholesaler, who is principally responsible for the daily management of the wholesaler. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Person: means a natural person. See Iowa Code 154A.1
  • Reasonable standards and qualifications: means those criteria applied by the brewer to similarly situated wholesalers during a period of twenty-four months before a proposed change in a successor manager of the wholesaler's business. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • sell: means a transfer of title or of the right to use by lease, bailment, or any other means, but excludes a wholesale transaction with a distributor or hearing aid specialist, and excludes the temporary, charitable loan or educational loan of a hearing aid without remuneration. See Iowa Code 154A.1
  • Similarly situated wholesalers: means wholesalers of a brewer that are of a generally comparable size, and operate in markets with similar demographic characteristics, including population size, density, distribution, and vital statistics, and reasonably similar economic and geographic conditions. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • State: means a state, territory, or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. See Iowa Code 152E.3
  • Successor manager: means an individual named or designated by agreement between a brewer and wholesaler who succeeds to the role of manager who will be principally responsible for the daily management of the wholesaler. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Territory: means the geographic area of primary sales responsibility designated by an agreement between a wholesaler and brewer for one or more brands of beer of the brewer. See Iowa Code 123A.2
  • Wholesaler: means a person, other than a vintner, brewer, or bottler of beer, who sells, barters, exchanges, offers for sale, possesses with intent to sell, deals, or traffics in beer. See Iowa Code 123A.2
 2. A wholesaler who, pursuant to an agreement, is granted a sales territory for which the wholesaler is primarily responsible or in which the wholesaler is required to concentrate the wholesaler’s efforts, shall not make any sale or delivery of beer to any retail licensee whose place of business is not within the territory granted to the wholesaler unless agreed upon by all affected parties.
  Previous section
Next section  
 Chapter 123A Contents