a familiar template is used for different matters

Things That Go Wrong in Contracts: a familiar template is used for different matters

Templates are useful and often necessary. But a template should not drive the transaction.

A consultancy agreement drafted for a straightforward Belgian engagement may not work for a cross-border arrangement. A template built around a self-employed individual does not sit comfortably when the counterparty is a company posting its own employees. A standard form reviewed once may be signed dozens of times, by people who were not part of drafting it and do not always read it the same way.

The problem is not that the document looks wrong. The problem is that it can look entirely complete and still fail to deal with the actual situation.

Why contract templates can create risk

Templates are useful and often necessary. But a template should not drive the transaction.

A consultancy agreement drafted for a straightforward Belgian engagement may not work for a cross-border arrangement. A template built around a self-employed individual does not sit comfortably when the counterparty is a company posting its own employees. A standard form reviewed once may be signed dozens of times, by people who were not part of drafting it and do not always read it the same way.

The problem is not that the document looks wrong. The problem is that it can look entirely complete and still fail to deal with the actual situation.

Where standard consultancy agreements can go wrong

The risk sits somewhere else. A familiar contract is reused for engagements with a different profile, and the gaps are rarely obvious until something goes wrong. Examples we regularly see include:

• No consideration of posted worker rules when services are performed across borders

• No assessment of whether the engagement structure creates employee classification risk

• Governing law and jurisdiction clauses applied regardless of where the consultant or the work is located

• No distinction between engaging a self-employed individual and engaging a company that supplies its own people

• Commercial teams signing contracts without legal review because the template looks familiar

• Key provisions that were negotiated for one context being applied without adjustment to a structurally different one

What to check before reusing a contract template

Before using a precedent, it helps to ask what is actually being provided and by whom. Whether the counterparty is an individual or an entity. Where the services will be performed. Whether Belgian or EU mandatory rules, including on posted workers or employment classification, apply. Whether the governing law still makes sense. Whether the commercial team understands the terms they are signing.

The contract structure should follow the commercial reality, not the other way around.

Building templates around the commercial reality

We developed separate templates for distinct engagement types: individual self-employed consultants, companies providing services through their own staff, and cross-border arrangements where posted worker rules or local mandatory law needed to be addressed. We built in a short intake process so that commercial teams could identify which template applied and when to loop in legal before signing. The client now has a framework that reflects what their business actually does.