Practice Areas

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Banking

Our team advises on a wide range of finance and banking transactions, providing advice to both borrowers and lenders on a broad spectrum of banking issues.

We have advised clients on structuring, negotiating and documenting complex finance deals in various areas, including secured and unsecured general banking, acquisition/leveraged finance, property finance and trade finance.  We also work on the restructuring of existing debt facilities.

Insolvency / Restructuring

We help our clients explore options, safeguard interests and maximize opportunities.  Our lawyers have considerable practical experience in dealing with the problems that arise when companies and financial institutions face financial difficulties.  They have represented creditors, corporate debtors or investors in a number of complex international restructurings and insolvencies.

Our clients benefit from the holistic and multidisciplinary approach practised by the firm, where our insolvency and restructuring lawyers are able to call upon the experience of colleagues in the fields of banking and finance; corporate, M&A and securities; employment; insurance; intellectual property; real estate; and tax.  And while disputes are inevitable, we have an impressive track record in resolving them.

Capital Markets

Our lawyers have extensive experience advising and representing corporate clients and financial institutions in capital markets transactions, in their various capacities – as issuers, arrangers, trustees and investors.  We have acted on both equity and debt capital markets transactions.

Our lawyers have acted on the restructuring of note issues under existing debt facilities, including working on amending the terms and conditions of the notes, making amendments to the underlying loan facility agreements and obtaining the relevant waivers from the note holders.

We also assist clients in structuring and negotiating derivative products, and have advised on a regular basis on negotiating ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association) and TBMA/ISMA (The Bond Market Association/International Security Management Association) documentation, as well as on master brokerage and payment netting agreements with various global investment banks.

Project Finance

Our lawyers have a wide range of experience in project finance transactions.  We also have a deep understanding of various financing transactions and techniques applied to the financing of projects, having advised on a wide range of international project and public finance transactions.

We assist our clients in preliminary reviews of structuring options for their projects, examination of different funding sources, acquisition of the appropriate level of technical advice for their projects and their dealings with municipal, regional and federal governments, as well as advising them on the regulatory requirements for their projects.

Commercial

Our priority is to have a deep understanding of the client’s business – what it does, how it works, as well as its relationships with customers, suppliers and partners.

Our lawyers advise on many types of commercial agreement from the commonplace to the innovative where no precedent exists.  Often various commercial arrangements play an important part in structuring corporate transactions.

We pride ourselves in coming up with the right structure for the client’s needs and in negotiating each deal to our client’s advantage.

Corporate Governance

Today, in a tough regulatory environment and with more rigorous enforcement practices, compliance with various corporate governance, disclosure requirements and on-going reporting obligations has become important as never before.

We advise corporate clients on a broad spectrum of corporate governance matters, including director and officer conflict of interest and liability issues, shareholder relationships and disputes.

Our lawyers also advise company directors and management on fiduciary duties as well as their duties and liabilities in connection with corporate transactions and stock exchange listings in the UK.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions is one of the core areas of our practice.

We have extensive experience in advising clients on corporate transactions across various industry sectors in the UK, Continental Europe and Asia.  We provide legal support in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions and restructuring, including consolidation, de-merger, spin-off and re-organisation. Our long term relationships with clients and close involvement in the deals from initial stages up to completion enables us to provide proactive and commercially sensitive advice.

We prepare the legal documentation including investment and shareholder agreements (including anti-dilution provisions and voting, redemption, pre-emption and other rights, joint venture agreements and foundation documents), term sheets, share swap agreements, put and call option agreements, sale and purchase agreements and other legal documents. We also advise on complex exit option structures.

International Arbitration

The firm’s international arbitration group draws on a wide variety of skills and many years of experience.  This includes advising clients at all stages of the arbitration process, from drafting effective arbitration agreements and claims to enforcing arbitral awards.  Our lawyers assist our clients in negotiating settlements and debt assignments at different stages of the arbitration process.  Members of our firm have appeared before arbitration tribunals in the UK and Continental Europe.

We advise clients on the arbitration process and foreign litigation options and strategies as well as on disputes between companies, including those with state interests.

The experience of our lawyers is recognised internationally.  Among our lawyers are arbitrators appointed by the LCIA and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

We offer and arrange services for business owners and high net worth individuals, including relocation programmes and immigration advice, the sale and purchase of residential properties, tax and succession planning, legal administration of luxury assets and family office set up and ongoing support.We pride ourselves on our commitment to understanding our clients’ requirements and providing them with an exceptional and bespoke service. 

We understand that starting up a business is a hard thing to do and brings many challenges.  We know that because we have done that ourselves.  We also know that control and predictability of costs is very important for new businesses.  That is why we offer a Company Start-Up service that covers everything from registering a business to putting in place a shareholders’ agreement and directors’ service contracts and dealing with the company books. 

To complement our Company Start-Up service, we also offer a Virtual General Counsel service.  Most smaller and start-up companies cannot afford to have an in-house general counsel on their books full time.  We offer the option of being able to contact an experienced lawyer who can deal with whatever issues your business faces in the same way that a full time general counsel would but without any of the overheads and without the premium rates of larger law firms.