The Addis Law team of lawyers work across a broad range of sectors, from science and technology to manufacturing. Our work encompasses the life cycle of an organisation – from the earliest stages of a start-up to the operations carried out by companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We also advise a significant number of small and very small businesses.

Our advice broadly covers four areas – corporate, commercial transactions, tax and risk.

Small Businesses

Working with small and very small businesses is an important part of our practice. This includes working with people who have an idea for a business and who need help and advice on how to make it a reality.

We help small businesses to run smoothly and avoid problems. From helping you with setting up your website and making sure you give your customers the right terms and conditions, to making sure that all your business relationships are set up in a professional way that protects you if things go wrong. We will always tell you what our costs will be before we start any work, if it is feasible to do so. We don’t charge for our time, we charge for the finished job. This helps make it easier for you to pick up the phone to us when you need answers.

We have a mutual interest in making your business be the best that it can be – success for you also means success for us. No business is too small to benefit from professional help. If you think this sounds interesting, then give us a call. We’d love to chat to you about your business and how we can help. We do this for free. You can decide later if you want us to help you.

Some of our recent work includes:

drafting ecommerce terms and conditions for a web based trading system | incorporation and advice on shareholder and partnership structures for various small trading and education businesses | succession planning for small business owners.

Corporate

On the corporate side, we deal with:

investments and disposals | private M&A | loan finance | university spin-outs | corporate governance | restructuring | joint ventures and shareholder agreements | listed companies | market abuse; and | private equity and other financial investors.

Some of our recent transactions include advising:

an EIS investment fund as the lead investor on a spin-out from the University of Oxford | a more established spin-out company on its second round of funding | acting for the lender on a secured convertible loan | Investment Property Databank Limited on its sale to MSCI Limited for £82 million | a UK manufacturing business on its sale to the Chinese government for £8 million; and | M3 Ltd on its acquisition of RotaMaster for £9.2 million.

Commercial

On the commercial side, we can lead the development of legal strategy and the negotiation and drafting of commercial transactions on behalf of our clients.

Our practice covers a broad range of areas including:

e-commerce, digital business and communications | manufacturing and distribution agreements | fund management | data protection and information security | information technology | intellectual property | brand protection | licensing | copyright | products and design | technology transfer requirements for spin-outs and investors | outsourcing | franchising.

Some of our recent transactions have included advising:

an investment manager on a new family office investment agreement | an importer on a distributor agreement for products from the US | the assignee of patents in a technology transfer.

Risk Management and Regulatory Compliance

We advise our clients on a broad range of issues in risk management and regulatory compliance including:

data protection and privacy | promotion of investments | consumer protection; and  | public procurement.

Some of our recent work includes advising:

a large organisation on General Data Protection Regulation compliance, ensuring that our client's contracts were fully compliant by the May 2018 deadline | advising a corporate finance advisor on the financial promotion of their client's investment opportunities.

Tax

We have a mature tax practice headed up by a highly experienced tax specialist who advises on all aspects of business tax including:

share option schemes | mergers and acquisitions | the Enterprise Investment Scheme and the Enterprise Management Incentive Scheme | employment related securities | joint ventures | corporate restructuring | management buy-outs | employee incentive schemes | secondments | property transactions | the tax aspects of general commercial matters.

Other areas

Occasionally, our clients need specialist technical advice. We always advise clients if this is the case. We have a large network of advisors with whom we work closely and who we trust. We bring these experts in, if needed. Examples of where this might occur include where specialist technical patent advice is needed from patent attorneys or where a transaction includes a cross border element and needs the involvement of foreign lawyers.

We can find the right expert, negotiate the fees on behalf of our clients (usually at a preferential rate) and manage the entire process. From our clients' points of view, the service is seamless.