Global Services

Arbitrage international

Commercial Contracts

We provide commercial contract support for in-house legal teams and also handle major projects and business-critical contracts for companies across sectors. The team has dedicated commercial lawyers who at any one time will be working on deals ranging from straightforward agreements to complex multi-party projects spanning multiple jurisdictions.

We work with clients to structure and document relationships with suppliers, customers or strategic partners including any concession, right or license won to exploit a market or material asset. We draft the range of documents necessary to create and preserve these relationships, protect our clients' rights and enhance the value of their businesses.

Our advice covers all kinds of commercial agreements including purchase and supply, partnering, agency and distribution, franchise, logistics and warehousing, facilities management, management arrangements, commercial outsourcing, joint ventures, partnerships and strategic alliances. We believe in the strategic alliance as a business medium, we understand its importance to our clients' businesses and have significant experience implementing strategic alliances by way of joint ventures.

Corporate

With an upsurge in global corporate transactions, companies must continually position themselves to access markets and technology, improve margins and reduce their exposure to risk. With more than 600 lawyers worldwide, our Corporate group advises many of the world’s leading and emerging companies, as well as financial institutions and buyout and investment funds, on mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, public and private equity and debt offerings, venture capital and private equity investments, and other transactional matters. We also advise on securities compliance, corporate governance, IT, tax, and executive compensation. We have significant experience in the technology, life sciences and consumer industries.

Our clients benefit from our ability to flag potential pitfalls in each country, to advise on cultural differences and nuances, to offer vital auxiliary advice in such areas as employment and competition law, and to manage even the most demanding due diligence exercise. Our lawyers have substantial experience in project managing complex multi-jurisdictional corporate activity worldwide.

Employment, Pensions, and Benefits

Employers have an ongoing need for advice, representaton and in-depth knowledge of employment, reward, and civil rights matters. The assessment and management of risk arising from the employment relationship is a key requirement for all organisations, wherever they are based or operate from.  Our lawyers provide guidance through structural change; handle senior executive appointments and severance; manage employee relations, policy matters, works councils, and trade union issues and disputes.  We advise and litigate on equal employment opportunity and discrimination-based issues; and defend and prosecute claims involving the protection of business assets and reputations. Over 250 lawyers globally have extensive experience in handling complex, politically sensitive employment-related matters, including multi-jurisdictional collective and class actions.

Our lawyers also assist with senior employee international mobility and compensation and benefits issues.  We work alongside clients in the development and maintenance of their benefits and pension arrangements, offering guidance on the replication of applicable arrangements in multiple jurisdictions as appropriate.  

We keep clients informed on proposed legislation and regulations affecting all aspects of the employment relationship, and support clients with seminars, conferences, specialist newsletters and our online support products.

Finance

We represent some of the largest finance companies in the world. We have wide experience advising financial institutions on a variety of banking arrangements. In addition the team regularly provides advice to our leading corporate clients to assist them with all their financing needs.

Our Finance practice advises on syndicated, asset-based, and cash flow loans, mezzanine and private equity investments, transportation finance and equipment leasing, and leveraged lender transactions. Our teams include Asset Finance, Debt Capital Markets and Securitisation, Infrastructure and Project Finance, Leveraged Finance, Real Estate Finance, Structured and Receivables Finance, Structured Trade and Commodity Finance, Insurance and Reinsurance, as well as Financial Restructuring and Bankruptcy.

Within this group is our Real Estate Capital Markets practice – which focuses on REITs, real estate funds and institutional investors, and lenders in the real estate industry.

Global Practices

Global Sectors

Intellectual Property

DLA Piper's intellectual property practice is one of the largest groups of IP lawyers in the world. More than 400 lawyers develop asset management and protection strategies designed to help clients manage risk, continue growth, and protect market share around the globe. We understand the commercial issues and pressures which arise from IP disputes or related negotiations, and provide innovative and strategic solutions to deal with them. We provide the strongest cross-jurisdictional support managed either locally, centrally or through a series of regional 'hub and spoke' arrangements.

The success of our IP practice attracts considerable attention. We are ranked as a leading IP team by both Legal 500 and Chambers directories across Europe, and in the US we have been named by the National Law Journal in its prestigious Defense Hot List. These accolades reflect our clients’ confidence in DLA Piper’s leading-edge advice when creating, protecting, managing and extending their IP rights wherever they do business.

When disputes arise, your commercial objectives are our main concern. Whether you turn to litigation, engage in arbitration or mediation, or employ some other innovative solution to the problem, our IP group will represent and support you at every stage. Notably, our highly acclaimed patent litigation team has won 17 out of 20 trials since 2002.

Using cross-disciplinary global teams to help clients with various technologies, our IP experience includes IP litigation as well as representation in areas such as applications, prosecution, and filings for patents, trademarks, and copyrights. We also advise companies on how best to leverage IP assets into revenue streams through licensing agreements, royalty structures and other dispositions. We undertake IP due diligence and IP audits and have formulated OEM/software licensing and outsourcing agreements for some of the largest companies in the world.

The ability to advise on all aspects of technology law expands the efficiencies and breadth of service for our clients - we offer advice on all related IP matters such as advertising and promotion law, data security, digital media content, e-commerce/Internet transactions, and privacy protection. We also help develop compliance programs in response to new corporate policies or national and local government regulations, including IP, privacy, or quality control audits.

Wherever you are, and whatever your industry, you need people you can trust to meet your IP and business objectives. With DLA Piper, you get the deep IP knowledge more commonly associated with boutique IP firms, along with the global resources and wider commercial perspective of our international practice. Increasingly, these are both essential for staying ahead in this dynamic area.

Litigation and Arbitration

Every day companies must manage the myriad risks inherent in doing business internationally or locally. When disputes arise, many of the world’s leading companies turn to our global team of experienced litigators to represent their interests. With over 1,400 dispute resolution lawyers globally, including many lawyers recognised as leaders in their fields by the leading independent directories, we understand the legal, business and procedural developments in jurisdictions throughout the world. Whatever problems our clients face, wherever they occur, we are well-placed to assist.

Our lawyers collaborate with clients and counterparts to identify and execute the most advantageous business-oriented solutions, either by pursuing or defending litigation or arbitration proceedings or through alternative methods, such as mediation.

We represent clients in complex, multi-jurisdictional disputes in numerous areas, including: antitrust, banking and financial services, class action, construction, corporate and securities, defence, employment, energy, fraud and asset recovery, government investigations, insolvency, insurance and reinsurance, intellectual property, international arbitration, international trade and transport (including aviation and marine), IT, marine, media, product liability, professional liability, real estate, regulation, tax, telecommunications and white collar.

We also design and implement sophisticated dispute resolution programmes for Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients.

We maintain state-of-the-art technology that streamlines our case and costs management and enhances efficiencies across our operations, and provides a communications platform for sharing information and documents with our clients.

Projects and Infrastructure

We represent commercial banks and investment banks, private equity funds, insurance companies, multilateral financing companies, export credit agencies, joint ventures, institutional investors, contractors, developers, sponsors, trustees, sovereigns and government agencies in a wide variety of matters. Our lawyers have significant experience structuring transactions to address the complex and sometimes conflicting economic and/or political goals of transaction and business venture participants. We have participated in the development, financing, acquisition and operation of complex infrastructure projects on nearly every continent. Our lawyers have helped to deliver ground-breaking private finance agreements and have first-hand experience with the structures and solutions that meet the needs of international financial institutions, government sponsored privatization programs, and global clients.

We served as legal adviser to the winning sponsor of the "Public Private Partnerships Best UK Deal 2006." Across Europe we have completed more than 160 PPP projects, advising on every legal aspect, including procurement regime, tax structuring, contractual documentation, construction, and financing.

Real Estate

The Real Estate group, with over 600 lawyers globally, is the world’s largest real estate practice and is consistently top-ranked around the world. As real estate develops into a truly global industry, our ability to quickly and efficiently provide legal services in structuring cross-border investments and transactions is paramount. Our clients value our global resources, regional strength and local delivery and include private and public companies, institutional investors and government entities.

We offer a full range of services in areas including acquisitions and disposals, construction, financing, hospitality and leisure, land use, planning and development, leasing, environmental law, insurance and tax. Our clients benefit from our significant experience in orchestrating complex, long-term projects that involve drafting documentation, facilitating negotiations, navigating legal and regulatory issues and, when necessary, litigating on their behalf.

Regulatory and Government Affairs

At the federal and state level in the US, and in the individual countries of Europe as well as the E.U., our people understand the legislative and regulatory process. To the strengths of our team, which includes our chairman, Senator George J. Mitchell, we add our alliance with The Cohen Group, the international business consulting firm.

Restructuring

Companies worldwide turn to us to represent them in their international, cross-border, and national insolvency, restructuring and recovery matters. With nearly 250 lawyers, we have in-depth experience representing lenders, debtors, creditors’ committees, and other major constituents in some of the world’s largest and most complex restructuring and insolvency matters. Our team is one of the largest groups of specialist restructuring lawyers in the world.

Our work ranges from re-organisation and reconstruction, distressed corporate finance, debt restructuring, and refinancing to formal insolvency procedures such as administration, receivership, voluntary arrangements, liquidation, and bankruptcy. We have considerable experience advising financial institutions, businesses and other key stakeholders on rescue and recovery procedures. We advise on all aspects of restructuring and insolvency, whether in anticipation of them or in dealing with their consequences, in industries ranging from retail, health care, and financial services to food and office products.

Tax

Global markets give rise to many complicated tax issues that require both expert knowledge of national legislation, including tax treaties, and an international perspective. Through our global offices, we provide advice on local and national tax as well as a commercially integrated approach to cross border structures and tax efficiency. We offer the full range of tax services that address the challenges of international commerce and business operations. Our team is skilled in the areas critical to multi-national companies, including arranging operations to reduce effective global tax rates, transfer pricing, tax disputes, post-acquisition integration and global equity compensation.

Technology and Media

DLA Piper's technology and sourcing practice concentrates on complex transactions and multiparty, high value, project work, frequently spanning multiple jurisdictions. We focus on the development, protection, exploitation and use of technology-related assets through various stages of a company's growth, as well as the sourcing of strategic assets and services for use in a company's operations. Our teams have deep industry sector experience that allow us to provide valuable practical advice and innovative solutions over and above our first-rate base of technical know-how. In addition we also provide specialist advice to the telecommunications sector, including commercial, transactional and regulatory aspects.

Our media practice counts many of the world's largest high profile entertainment and new media companies, sports bodies and major financial institutions as clients. In an increasingly convergent world where content inter-twines with technology, we are able to merge the circles by providing sound commercial advice and dispute resolution services based on extensive experience in the sector. We provide legal advice covering many areas including, telecommunications, patents, trademark, copyright, intellectual property, film financing, M&A, anti-counterfeiting, e-business, sports litigation, and privacy.

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