What happens to the licenses granted to an Embassy Suites customer upon termination or expiration of the agreement?
Embassy_Suites Franchise · 2025 FDDAnswer from 2025 FDD Document
4.2 4.2 Customer's Obligations upon Termination or Expiration. Upon any such termination the licenses granted to Customer under this Agreement, and the obligations of HSS to provide any Agreement Products and Services will immediately terminate. Customer will immediately cease using all Agreement Products and Services and promptly at HSS's discretion return any and all Agreement Products to HSS other than Authorized Equipment Customer owns, or destroy the same; provided, however, that Customer must return to HSS all Software contained in such Authorized Equipment. All of Customer's covenants and obligations under this Agreement will survive termination and expiration.
Source: Item 23 — RECEIPTS (FDD pages 97–305)
What This Means (2025 FDD)
According to Embassy Suites's 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document, upon termination or expiration of the agreement, the licenses granted to the customer immediately terminate, as do Embassy Suites's obligations to provide agreement products and services. The customer must immediately stop using all agreement products and services. At Embassy Suites's discretion, the customer must either return any and all agreement products to HSS, excluding authorized equipment the customer owns, or destroy them. However, all software contained in the authorized equipment must be returned to HSS. All of the customer's covenants and obligations under the agreement survive termination and expiration.
This means that an Embassy Suites franchisee loses all rights to use the licensed software and products associated with the franchise upon termination or expiration of the agreement. They must discontinue use of these items immediately and either return or destroy them as directed by Embassy Suites. The franchisee retains ownership of authorized equipment they have purchased, but must return any software contained within that equipment.
It is important to note that even after the agreement ends, certain obligations of the franchisee continue. This could include ongoing confidentiality obligations or payment obligations that were not fully satisfied before the termination date. A prospective Embassy Suites franchisee should carefully review the entire agreement to understand which obligations survive termination and what their responsibilities will be even after the franchise relationship ends.