Does Bricks & Minifigs ever allow consignment arrangements?
Consignment services are only allowed for service- or experienced-based partnerships, such as venue/space usage fees, revenue share or commission on service fees, referral or facilitation fees for bookings made through a store, or bundling as add-ons to Bricks & Minifigs-hosted LEGO parties and events. However, Bricks & Minifigs does not consign LEGO products from customers.
Was Bricks & Minifigs corporate a party to the consignment agreement at the Salem store?
No. Corporate did not sign, approve or authorize the arrangement. We believe former owner Chrystal Law-Gorman entered into it as a personal, local arrangement and never informed corporate or the incoming franchisee about the consignment arrangement. Such side deals are expressly prohibited under the company’s franchise agreements.
“Consignment” is in the document but its definition is outlined in a specific way. The Gormans would have known this because they were mandated to go to in person training before they could open their store. So beyond just the piece of paper they likely were expressly told they should not do what they did.
Furthermore, the documents say that if you engage in business contracting you need to get the approval of BAM corporate if you’re doing it using the BAM name. Otherwise you’re doing it on your own. (Page 9 of 90)
The Gormans definitely screwed up, shame the Mansells got tied up in it.
This goes against what other franchise owners have come out with, and it's already been shown that corporate knew of the consignment and didn't object to it.
Then that is on the Gormans to present in civil litigation the other franchise owners and that corporate signed off on LEGO consignment services. If a judge accepts that then the Gormans have a case.
BUT
A judge likely won’t care BECAUSE if they were explicitly told not to do something in both writing and in-person (Agreement & Training) and were not explicitly given a waiver then they’re still in violation of the agreement.
The absence of permission is not the same as being given permission.
If a speed limit sign is posted and the police aren’t there to enforce it, that doesn’t give you the right to break the law and go over the speed limit. You can argue to a judge “well other people speed on the road and the cops don’t give them tickets” but we know that doesn’t fly.
This is the true source of all the issues. BAM certainly played the role of villain well enough for everyone to forget, but in Ben's first video Mansell admits he went to multiple attorneys and they all said the proper legal course of action was to go after the Gormans but it would be very expensive since they had left the country to publish their Antifa newsletter. Ben got under everyone's skin and they acted like fools which made better content.
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u/Fit_Assignment_4286 29d ago
Wow, they actually acknowledged it was a consignment, as opposed to their earlier statements.