The Dayan case is the first major dispute between McDonald's and a French operator, and it already raises the question that will run through all the others: what happens when the network head considers that the operator is not meeting its standards?
The Illinois court held in 1982 that the restaurants operated by Dayan did not meet the agreement's requirements of quality, service and cleanliness, and authorised McDonald's to terminate. Dayan's defence rested on good faith: he argued that the franchisor had not provided him with the promised assistance and had thus set him up to fail. The court rejected this argument.
The structure of the reasoning — the franchisor has the right to terminate, but the fairness of the manner can be debated — is exactly the one that would be at the heart of the Antibes case fifteen years later, this time before a French judge.