Commercial Agent Indemnity and Customary Practice

The case concerned a dispute where a commercial agent, having a contract with a principal that was terminated by the principal without serious fault on the part of the agent, sought compensation for damages based on a customary practice for such indemnities, even though the contract did not explicitly provide for it. The Court of Cassation quashed the lower court's decision, reasoning that while customary practices can supplement contractual obligations, they cannot override or contradict explicit contractual terms, and in the absence of a specific contractual clause or a general legal provision granting indemnity in such circumstances, the agent was not automatically entitled to the claimed compensation merely based on alleged local custom, thus limiting the scope of implied rights in commercial agency agreements.