Commercial Agreements

Much of our work involves drafting, negotiating or advising on commercial agreements. We have experience of many types of commercial agreements, covering the entire range of transactions encountered by our business and academic clients. To take a few examples:

• Preliminary agreements, including CDAs, MTAs, term sheets, options & teaming agreements;
• Agreements concerned with research, development, testing and trials;
• Collaborations, joint ventures, consortium agreements and other multi-party agreements;
• Technical and professional services agreements, including master services agreements, CRO agreements, service level agreements, reseller agreements, software and database agreements;
• Product supply, purchase, lease and distribution agreements;
• Standard terms of business;
• Website-related contracts and terms;
• Employment and consultancy agreements;
• IP-related agreements (see Intellectual property).

Much of our work has an international element. The transactions on which we advise are often between parties based in different countries, or concern activities to be performed in more than one country (e.g. international clinical trials, or the grant of intellectual property rights in more than one country). We have participated in face-to-face negotiations in the US, Japan and several European countries.

We tend not to advise on ‘real’ property (ie land and buildings) leases and sale, and instead can refer our clients to specialists in this area.