01
Commercial Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Disputes are resolved on the evidence and on the leverage. We advise on both, and are candid about which of the two is doing the work in any given matter.
What the firm handles
- Commercial and contractual disputes
- Shareholder and joint venture disputes
- International arbitration and institutional proceedings
- Mediation and negotiated settlement
- Interim relief, injunctions and freezing orders
- Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and awards
- Asset tracing and post-judgment enforcement
- Professional negligence and warranty claims
Typical matters include enforcing an award against assets held in a third jurisdiction, testing whether an arbitration clause will actually deliver what the client expects, and structuring a settlement that closes the exposure rather than deferring it.
02
Intellectual Property & Patents
Patent and trade mark portfolios are commercial assets. We treat them as balance-sheet items that occasionally need defending, not as a filing exercise.
What the firm handles
- Patent advisory, filing strategy and freedom-to-operate
- Patent infringement, revocation and invalidity proceedings
- Trade mark clearance, prosecution and oppositions
- Copyright ownership and chain-of-title review
- Trade secrets and confidential information regimes
- IP licensing, royalty and co-existence agreements
- Portfolio audits for transactions and financing
- Anti-counterfeiting and customs enforcement
Typical matters include establishing ownership where development was outsourced, resolving conflicting rights between distributors in different territories, and auditing a portfolio before it is warranted in a sale agreement.
03
Mergers & Acquisitions
A deal is a risk allocation exercise. Most of the value is decided in diligence and in the indemnity schedule, not in the headline price.
What the firm handles
- Share and asset acquisitions and disposals
- Legal due diligence and red-flag reporting
- Sale and purchase agreements, warranties and indemnities
- Joint ventures, consortium and shareholder agreements
- Management buy-outs and founder exits
- Private equity and venture capital investments
- Group reorganisations and pre-sale restructuring
- Post-completion integration and earn-out disputes
Typical matters include quantifying an intellectual property defect found in diligence, negotiating the warranty package that follows from it, and acting on the earn-out dispute two years later — usually for the same client.
04
Corporate & Commercial
The agreements a business signs while things are going well determine what it can do when they are not. Most commercial disputes are drafting decisions arriving late.
What the firm handles
- Company formation, structuring and governance
- Shareholder agreements and constitutional documents
- Supply, distribution and agency agreements
- Licensing, franchising and reseller arrangements
- Outsourcing and services agreements
- Technology, software and data agreements
- Commercial terms, warranties and liability caps
- Board advisory and directors' duties
Typical matters include rewriting a standard-form contract that has been quietly conceding liability for years, and advising a board on the point at which a commercial decision becomes a duty question.
05
Banking, Finance & Restructuring
Facility documents and security packages decide who controls the outcome when a business runs short of room. That is the moment to have read them properly.
What the firm handles
- Secured and unsecured lending facilities
- Security packages, guarantees and intercreditor arrangements
- Acquisition and leveraged finance
- Debt restructuring and refinancing
- Insolvency advisory and creditor representation
- Enforcement of security
- Loan portfolio and receivables transactions
- Financial services regulatory advisory
Typical matters include establishing whether a security package covers what the lender believes it covers, and advising creditors on their position before a formal process begins rather than after it.
06
Employment & Regulatory
People and compliance are where commercial risk most often turns into personal risk for directors.
What the firm handles
- Executive and senior employment agreements
- Restrictive covenants and team-move disputes
- Employee inventions and IP assignment
- Termination, redundancy and settlement agreements
- Workplace investigations and whistleblowing
- Regulatory investigations and compliance programmes
- Data protection and cross-border transfer arrangements
- Anti-bribery, sanctions and competition compliance
Typical matters include enforcing restrictive covenants on a team move, confirming that employee-created intellectual property actually transferred, and preparing a business for a regulator's first letter rather than its second.
Enquiries
Most matters sit across two of these.
A deal that turns on a patent, or a shareholder dispute that turns on a facility agreement, needs one practice rather than two firms.
Contact the Firm