Our Services

 

Commercial transactions

We advise on a wide range of complex commercial transactions. Some involve the sale of a client’s business, including its intellectual property and other assets. Others involve the exploiting of a client’s assets and skills, such as licensing early stage technology, appointing manufacturers or distributors, or forming a spin-out company.

Below are examples of transactions that we undertake:

• Pharmaceutical licensing. Grant of exclusive patent and know-how licences in respect of pharmaceutical drugs. Typically, these high-value licence agreements are for drugs in Phase II or III trials and include negotiated licence terms specific for the North American territory, European territory, and Asian territory.
• Software licensing. Agreements for the supply of software, hardware and services to multi-national companies and to government bodies across the world.
• R&D collaborations. International research collaboration agreements which are funded by commercial companies, charities and government agencies.
• Corporate transactions. Sale of UK technology-based companies to overseas purchasers
• Finance transactions. Venture capital investments in technology start-up companies.
• Royalty streams. Sale by university clients of patent royalty streams to commercial companies for lump sums.
• Termination agreements. Settling disputes relating to early termination of licence agreements between technology spin-outs and commercial companies.

In-house services

In contrast to many other law firms, we like to work closely with our clients as part of their commercial team. Our extensive experience as in-house lawyers (including with British Maritime Technology Limited, Isis, Sanofi and Syngenta) and as virtual in-house lawyers (including Xenova Group plc, Open University and Summit plc) provides us with a unique perspective of our clients’ needs. We offer various services that provide clients with bespoke in-house services, including secondments to clients’ offices and assistance in the recruitment of in-house counsel, including by being part of the interviewing panel.

Drafting template agreements and other documents

Over the years, we have published several hundred agreements and examples of clauses in various books, guides, volumes of legal encyclopaedias.

We have also generated sets of template agreements (also known as precedents) for our clients. Most of our templates are commercial agreements, guidance notes, consent forms, corporate documents (eg board minutes), company policies and standard operating procedures. We have access to a wide range of materials and are happy to discuss the preparation of new documents or updating your existing templates.

Training

We have written several legal textbooks for practitioners in our areas of specialisation, and give professional training to other lawyers and commercial executives.

Notary public

Our clients sometimes require documents to be notarised, usually in connection with overseas transactions and events. Typical situations include filing of overseas patent applications, formation of overseas subsidiary companies, and swearing in of witnesses giving depositions in the UK in relation to overseas litigation. We are experienced in dealing with business-related notarial matters and provide a cost-effective and flexible notary service that can be provided at short notice and at clients’ offices (London and Home Counties).

Recommending other professionals

We are happy to recommend people we think are good at what they do, and provide a good service. We can provide recommendations in the following areas:

• Solicitors (both in London and in other parts of the UK).
• Barristers (Commercial, IP, Crime, etc).
• Overseas lawyers (Europe, North America, Australasia).
• Patent and trade mark agents.
• Other professionals (eg accountancy, insurance, licensing professionals).

Please contact us to discuss if we can assist you with your legal matters.