Family of former Vodafone manager found drowned call for ‘Adrian’s law’ to protect franchisees
The family of Adrian Howe, a former Vodafone employee found drowned in 2018 shortly before his new franchise was due to open, are campaigning for a new "Adrian's law" to protect franchisees, arguing his death might have been prevented had such regulation existed. His daughter, Kirsty-Anne Holmes, wants a governing body to oversee franchising contracts and stop firms such as Vodafone imposing terms like personal guarantees, and has raised the proposal with the Department for Business and Trade.
Howe's family believe he took his own life after concluding his franchising deal would be financially ruinous; he had been due to open a store in Irvine but was told he must also take on a struggling second franchise in Kilmarnock, putting the family home at risk under a personal guarantee. His case, revealed by the Guardian and later raised in parliament, prompted Keir Starmer to pledge a review of franchising law. It follows Vodafone's settlement, a week earlier, of a High Court claim by 62 former franchisees who alleged the company had "unjustly enriched" itself by up to £85m, reached without admission of liability.
- Family of Adrian Howe seeks "Adrian's law" to protect franchisees
- Howe drowned in 2018 fearing his Vodafone deal was ruinous
- Follows Vodafone's £85m franchisee settlement, reached without liability admission
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates for a governing body and restrictions on terms such as personal guarantees argue that individual franchisees often have little power to negotiate with large corporations, leaving them exposed to contractual terms that can put their homes and savings at risk. They contend that the Vodafone settlement and Mr Howe's case point to a wider pattern in which franchising, unlike more heavily regulated sectors, lacks independent oversight to catch predatory or poorly disclosed terms before they cause serious harm. For them, a dedicated regulator or statutory code would bring transparency and basic protections to a relationship where one party is a multinational and the other is often a single family risking everything on one contract.
The case against
Those wary of new statutory regulation argue that personal guarantees are a standard and legitimate commercial tool, used across many industries to align a franchisee's incentives with the health of their business and to satisfy lenders, and that franchising already sits within existing contract, insolvency and consumer protection law. They caution against building policy around a single, deeply tragic case without a fuller evidential review, since correlation between a difficult contract and a death by suicide does not establish that regulation would have changed the outcome. They also worry that a new governing body could add cost and bureaucracy that makes franchisors more cautious about expanding in the UK, potentially reducing the very entrepreneurial opportunities the law aims to protect.