Distributor Integrity Score
A named distributor, scored across eight dimensions, with a stated verdict, defined red flags, and monitored events.
What it is
The Distributor Integrity Score is MAALAT’s framework for evaluating a specific named distributor before a mid-market operator commits inventory, credit, exclusivity, or brand-representation rights to that distributor.
It is not a credit check. It is not a background report. It is a structured commercial read of one named distribution counterparty at one point in time, applied to one specific distribution decision the operator is about to make.
Every Distributor Integrity Score answers three questions in that order:
Given the eight dimensions below, what is the current integrity posture of this distributor?
What verdict does the score produce for the specific distribution commitment on the table?
What events, if they occurred, would change the verdict — and how are we watching for them?
The framework is deliberately narrow. It does not attempt to be a full compliance or investigative diligence tool. It answers the commercial question a mid-market operator actually asks: is this distributor who they say they are, and can I commit inventory, credit, or exclusivity to them on these terms?
Why distributors need a separate framework
A distributor is not the same commercial counterparty as a supplier, a buyer, or a joint-venture partner. The commitment structure is different, the failure modes are different, and the diligence questions are different.
Where a Counterparty Score answers will they hold up their side of a contract, a Distributor Integrity Score answers a prior question: is this organisation a substantive commercial operator, or is it a thin structure that will absorb inventory and credit and disappear?
Most mid-market operators have been burned by a distributor at least once. The pattern is nearly always the same — a plausible-looking company, a persuasive first meeting, a smooth first order, and then a slow collapse in receivables, missing inventory, or a brand appearing in unauthorised channels. The Distributor Integrity Score is the framework that surfaces the pattern before the commitment is made, not after.
The eight dimensions
Every Distributor Integrity Score is built from the same eight dimensions. The dimensions are ordered by verification depth — earlier dimensions are foundational and must clear before later dimensions carry weight.
1. Legal existence
Whether the distributor exists as a properly registered legal entity in the jurisdictions where it claims to operate. Includes trade register status, tax registration, VAT or equivalent number, licensing where the sector requires it, and consistency between the entity name on contracts and the entity name in official filings. A distributor that fails at Legal Existence stops the review — later dimensions do not matter.
2. Ownership transparency
Who ultimately owns and controls the distributor. Includes visible ultimate beneficial owner, consistency between claimed ownership and registered ownership, presence in offshore or opaque structures, and any known nominee or front arrangement. A distributor whose ownership cannot be established is scored down regardless of operational appearance.
3. Commercial substance
Evidence that the distributor is an operating business, not a shell. Includes physical premises, verifiable headcount, warehousing where the product line requires it, actual sales-force presence in the claimed territory, and observable commercial activity beyond the operator’s own product. A distributor with no commercial substance cannot execute a distribution mandate even if legally clean.
4. Banking consistency
Whether the distributor’s banking relationships match its stated commercial profile. Includes bank of record, jurisdiction of the operating account, consistency between contract counterparty name and account beneficiary name, and any request to route payments through third-party accounts, offshore accounts, or cash-equivalent instruments. Banking inconsistency is one of the earliest signals of a thin or diverting distributor.
5. Market legitimacy
The distributor’s standing among the customers, competitors, and adjacent counterparties in its stated market. Includes verifiable customer references, presence in trade associations relevant to the sector, absence of unresolved market disputes, and consistency between the distributor’s self-description and what other market participants confirm. A distributor invisible to the market they claim to operate in is a flag.
6. Digital footprint
The distributor’s verifiable digital presence, weighted for the sector. Includes website age and content depth, business-directory listings, sector-relevant social presence, and consistency between digital claims and offline verification. Absence of a digital footprint is not automatically negative in every sector — it is scored against sector norms, not against a universal digital benchmark.
7. Contract behaviour
How the distributor negotiates and behaves around the commitment being scored. Includes pressure for exclusive rights before earning them, resistance to standard commercial terms (letter of credit, escrow, staged delivery), demands for atypical territory or category scope, and reluctance to provide standard commercial documentation. Contract behaviour is scored in the negotiation itself, not from historical reputation.
8. Transaction anomalies
Patterns visible in any prior or trial transactions with the distributor. Includes unusual order timing, split-invoice requests, address changes on delivery, discrepancies between purchase order and payment sender, sudden scale escalation, and any request to modify standard shipping, insurance, or documentation flow. Absent transaction history, this dimension is scored on the transaction structure the distributor is proposing.
Scoring the dimensions
Each dimension is scored on a three-point scale: Green — no material integrity concern for the distribution commitment on the table; Amber — a material concern exists and must be reflected in commercial terms; Red — a concern severe enough to block the distribution commitment as currently structured. Scoring is dimension-anchored, not comparative. A Green on Ownership Transparency means the ownership picture is materially clean for this commitment, not that it is cleaner than the last distributor MAALAT scored. This makes scores comparable across briefs and across time. Each dimension score is accompanied by named evidence — the specific filing, registration record, banking artifact, market reference, or negotiation observation that supports the score — with a source URL a reader can verify in under 60 seconds where the evidence is public.
Foundational-dimension rule: Legal Existence, Ownership Transparency, and Commercial Substance are foundational. A Red on any one of the three produces an automatic Do not proceed verdict regardless of how the remaining five dimensions score. A distributor that is not legally real, not transparently owned, or not commercially substantive cannot be rescued by good banking or a strong digital footprint.
The composite verdict
The eight dimension scores compose into one of four named verdicts. The verdict is the commercial answer to the operator’s decision, expressed in a form that can be handed to a commercial director, a board, or a bank.
Proceed — All eight dimensions Green, or up to two non-foundational dimensions Amber with the concerns reflected in standard commercial terms. The distribution commitment is supported by the current integrity posture of the distributor. Proceed with conditions — At least one Amber that requires named commercial conditions (letter of credit, escrow, staged delivery, personal guarantee, shorter-tenor terms, tighter exclusivity clauses, reduced initial territory) before signature. Conditions are specified line by line, not left as general advice. Pause — The distributor is not currently disqualified, but a specific pending event (regulatory review, ownership restructuring, banking change, contested market dispute) will resolve within a defined window and materially changes the read. The verdict is to hold the commercial commitment until the event resolves, with a named re-review date. Do not proceed — At least one Red on a foundational dimension (Legal Existence, Ownership Transparency, or Commercial Substance), a Red on any two of the remaining five dimensions, or a combination of Ambers that in aggregate makes the distribution commitment structurally unsound. Alternative distributors or alternative go-to-market structures are identified where possible.
The verdict is stated as a named recommendation, not as a probability or a range. The operator receives a decision they can act on, with the evidence and reasoning that supports it.
Red flags
A Distributor Integrity Score is a point-in-time read. What makes it operational rather than one-shot is the red-flag list. Every Distributor Integrity Score names between three and seven red flags — specific, observable events that, if they occurred, would change the verdict or a dimension score after commitment. Red flags are written in a form that can be watched: a change in beneficiary bank, a change of registered address, a first split-invoice request, a first attempt to route through an offshore account, an unexpected personnel change in the distributor’s leadership, or the appearance of the operator’s product in unauthorised channels.
A red flag is not “the situation could deteriorate.” A red flag is “if the distributor requests payment routing to a beneficiary account outside its country of registration on any transaction above USD X, Banking Consistency moves from Green to Red and the verdict moves from Proceed with conditions to Pause.” The red-flag list is what makes the score defensible against post-commitment surprise. If a flagged event occurs and MAALAT has named it in advance, the operator has a pre-agreed response. If a flagged event occurs and MAALAT has not named it, the score itself is stale and must be re-run.
Monitored events
Distinct from red flags, the monitored events section lists lower-probability but higher-consequence developments that the operator wants visibility on even though they are not expected within the commitment window. Monitored events are typically: Regulatory reviews or enforcement actions in the distributor’s jurisdiction that could reshape distribution licensing generally; Sector-wide anti-diversion or grey-market investigations that historically have exposed thin distributors; Political or currency events in the distributor’s country that could change the economics of holding inventory or extending credit; Public actions against the distributor’s ownership group in unrelated matters. The operator receives a defined cadence — typically monthly — during which MAALAT reads for movement on the monitored events list. When movement is detected, the operator is notified and the score is re-issued if the movement is material.
What Distributor Integrity Score is not
The framework is deliberately narrower than the sales pitch of most compliance or investigative vendors, and the difference matters for buyers deciding what they are paying for. Distributor Integrity Score is not: A background investigation, an OSINT report, or a fraud probe; A credit rating or a probability-of-default estimate on the distributor; A sanctions or AML compliance screen (though sanctions exposure is captured under Ownership Transparency where public); A recurring subscription screening service; A substitute for legal, tax, or accountant advice on the specific distribution agreement. Distributor Integrity Score is: One decision, one distributor, one point in time; Named verdict, named evidence, named red flags, named monitored events; Delivered as a written brief with source URLs on every material fact where the fact is public; Refreshed on a defined cadence or on red-flag occurrence, not on demand.
When to commission one
The framework is designed for the operator who is about to make a specific distribution commitment to a specific named distributor, and who wants the commitment structured against a defensible read rather than against a summary from the distributor itself. Typical situations: Appointing a new distributor in a jurisdiction where the operator has no direct market presence; Granting or extending exclusive territory or category rights to an existing distributor; Extending open-account credit terms or increased credit limits to a distributor; Renewing or restructuring a distribution agreement after an ownership change on the distributor side; Investigating an existing distributor after a first anomaly signal (receivables slip, unauthorised-channel appearance, banking change) before deciding whether to continue. The framework is not designed for portfolio-level distributor screening across dozens of counterparties. It is designed for the single distribution decision on the table.
Interaction with Counterparty Score
Some distributors also warrant a Counterparty Score — particularly larger, publicly-visible distributors where solvency, regulatory posture, and external pressure are as material as integrity. In those cases the operator receives both scores as companion briefs: the Counterparty Score answers will they hold up their side of the contract as a going concern, and the Distributor Integrity Score answers are they who they claim to be as a distribution operator. The two frameworks share the same scoring language and the same brief structure, so the composite read is directly usable. For smaller or newer distributors, the Distributor Integrity Score alone is typically sufficient — a full Counterparty Score adds diligence weight the commitment does not carry.
Reading the published briefs
The public MAALAT library contains a foundational Distributor Integrity brief — Brief #02 · The Distributor Integrity Playbook — that lays out the framework against representative distributor patterns. Future distributor briefs will apply this framework to named distributors in named markets, using the same eight dimensions, the same composite verdicts, the same red-flag structure, and the same monitored-events cadence as this page. Reading Brief #02 alongside this framework is the fastest way to see how the framework produces a commercially actionable answer from public and negotiation evidence.
Framework version 1.0. The Distributor Integrity Score sits alongside five other named frameworks — Counterparty Score, Situation Score, Problem Framework, China Structural Risk Score, and Feasibility Framework — that together compose MAALAT’s commercial decision intelligence system.
Related methodology
Methodology
Counterparty Score
The scoring framework MAALAT uses to evaluate a named counterparty across ownership, financial health, situational triggers, and structural risk.
Read the methodology →