Agency

Agency in United Kingdom

Definition of Agency

In accordance with the work A Dictionary of Law, this is a description of Agency :

The Agency in the History

Labour struggled to find an advertisement agency that would professionally represent them in the 1980’s. This was because many agencies thought their own company’s future business hopes would be pinned on Labour winning the next general election. There was also a rumour that any agency that worked for the Labour Party would risk losing its contracts in the private sector, due to the private sector’s affiliation with the Conservatives and the free market economy. The BMP (Boase, Massimi, Pollit) advertising agency were ideal candidates for Labour due to their previous work with the TUC (Trade Unions Congress with whom Labour were affiliated) and had handled the ‘Save the GLC’ campaign (Greater London Council). Chris Powell, Managing Director of the company, who had been advising Labour on communications since 1971, supported the idea but other board members opposed him. In the end, Labour set up ‘The Agency’ chaired by Powell, with many BMP staff. They even borrowed office space from them. Not formally recognising the BMP as the official agency of the party allowed Labour greater liaison with their advertising and allowed them to bring in people from other backgrounds to the almost ‘in house’ company they had created. The approach taken by The Agency was largely inspired by Reagan’s volunteer system in the 1984 presidential elections. The Agency was largely made up of volunteers.

Agency Law

An agent is a person authorised by another (called the principal) to act on his behalf. An agent authorised to act for a special purpose only is called a particular agent; if there is a general authority to act within a given sphere, the agent is called a general agent. A partnership is an instance of general agency in the widest sense, each partner being, as a rule, considered the agent of his co-partners for all purposes coming within the scope of the partnership business. An agent may not, according to English law, derive any concealed profit from his agency, and he may not, as a general rule, delegate his authority to another person.

An agent may in his dealings with third parties act as principal, or he may state the fact of the agency without disclosing the name of the principal, or he may deal on behalf of a named principal. The rules of law concerning the liabilities and mutual relations of the various parties in all these cases are too complicated to be stated here, and the general rules are often modified by the customs of particular localities or particular trades. The authority of an agent acting on behalf of a corporate body cannot extend beyond the limits imposed upon the sphere of action of the corporation either by Act of Parliament, or by the charter of incorporation or by the memorandum of association (see ULTRA VIREO). [1]

Resources

Notes

  1. Robert Harry Inglis, Sir, Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. 1, 1915

See Also

Further Reading


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