What happens to the Aerus Customer Data license upon expiration or termination of the Franchise Agreement?

According to Aerus's 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document, all rights and licenses to use the Customer Data automatically terminate upon the expiration or termination of the Franchise Agreement. The Customer Data includes a database of customer information owned and maintained by Aerus. Aerus may make part of this data available to the franchisee for use within their Area of Responsibility on a limited, nonexclusive basis. This is subject to the franchisee paying a Customer Data Fee and strictly adhering to the terms of the agreement, the Policies and Procedures, and any specific guidelines Aerus imposes regarding the collection, maintenance, and use of the Customer Data.

Upon termination or expiration, the franchisee must promptly return to Aerus any printed or virtual material containing any of the Customer Data. All rights to and goodwill in the Customer Data are exclusively the property of Aerus, and the franchise agreement does not grant the franchisee any rights to the Customer Data except as specifically outlined in the agreement.

This means that when the franchise agreement ends, an Aerus franchisee loses the right to use any customer information provided by Aerus and must return all records of that data. This is a standard practice in franchising, as the customer data is a valuable asset owned by the franchisor. The franchisee cannot continue to leverage this data to operate a similar business independently after the franchise agreement concludes.