Franchisees are a very liquid thing here in Taiwan. What I mean is somebody could be part of a franchise, and then tomorrow just rename their store but keep all the old trappings and sell the same food, but say they are no longer part of that franchise. I'm guessing that Taiwan law is pretty lax on this as it happens quite often.
What I've heard is that some owners just get upset with having to follow the rules of a franchise so they decide to go out on their own. One prominent example of this in Taiwan is the "Subber" sandwich shop chain. One franchise owner had an argument with Subway and the next day his shop opened up as Subber. It ended up becoming so popular that it actually became a franchise of it's own and there are a few Subbers around the city.
In the past I worked with a teacher who had been through this. His school was part of a franchise and the owner of his school and a few others was upset at the franchise's owner. The owner of those few schools made all his employees come to the branches he owned and work all night to change the school into a new one. Basically taking down all of the old names and putting up new ones. The next day they were new schools, but with the same teachers, students, employees as the day before.
They aren't all success stories. One victim of this was my favorite tea shop chain "Legend." I used to get some tea from them about once or twice a week, but one day I went to one of their stores and they were called something else. I spoke with the clerk and he said they are same store, just rebranded to get out of franchisee responsibilities. Well this rebranding must have hurt them, because even though the taste was the exact same, they were all closed within four months. Or perhaps somehow the Taiwan law forced them to close. Maybe franchise owners sometimes do have some recourse.
After lunch today I saw what could be another one of these cases. The coffee shop you see, while called S&D, is actually using the fixtures and what seemed like the food and coffee of a well known coffee shop chain called 85degrees. Perhaps they went through a rebranding after a fight with the main franchise, or perhaps the 85 just closed and this store took up their lease.
