A terminated sales agent claimed that he was engaged in a joint venture with the company whose products he had been distributing, so that he had a proprietary interest in the territory covered by him for which he was entitled to compensation. In rejecting this claim, Beames J stated (at paras. 30-31):
Williston on Contracts, as quoted in Canlan Investments Corp. v. Gettling (July 18, 1996), Doc. Vancouver C954829 (B.C.S.C.) at para 59, defines the term "joint venture" as follows:
In summary, then, a working definition of joint venture based on the actual judicial decisions may be thus formulated: A joint venture is an association of persons, natural or corporate, who agree by contract to engage in some common, usually ad hoc undertaking for joint profit by combining their respective resources, without however, forming a partnership in the legal sense (of creating that status) or corporation; their agreement also provides for a community of interest among the joint venturers each of whom is both principal and agent as to the others within the scope of the venture over which each venturer exercises some degree of control.
I cannot find on the facts of this case that the plaintiff and the defendant were in a joint venture. The plaintiff was, without question, and by express agreement between the parties, the agent of the defendant. I do not find that the defendant was an agent of the plaintiff in any way. I similarly do not find a "community of interest" between the parties. Further, there was no arrangement for a sharing of profits between the parties, merely a commission sales agreement. Consequently, on this issue, I conclude that the plaintiff must fail… .