Ryan is an attorney and valuation specialist residing in Chicago. He chronicles his thoughts and research on FranchisePundit.com. You may reach him by email ryanknoll@gmail.com or mobile telephone 312-212-3423.
Franchisee’s can sometimes successfully challenge and win in arbitration and court battles with their franchisors.
Subway’s founder Fred DeLuca lost his appeal to overturn an arbitration board’s decision that awarded Rottinghaus and Dowell, two midwestern Subway franchisees, $150,000 each. In 1997, DeLuca apparently didn’t want the two franchisees to be elected to the board of the Subway Franchise Advertising Fund, which distributes advertising money to Subway stores across the country. In 2001, the arbitration panel concluded that DeLuca violated Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act by pressuring the board to cancel the election and resolve new rules that prevented the two men from running.
It only took 8 years for this grievance to reach a final conclusion 
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The number of legal actions by Subway against it’s franchisee’s is a good indicator of the general disdain that exists within the Subway Corporate towards the individual store operators. Many regional Subway development agents routinely distroy local operators in the name of personall greed.