Our specialists provide expert advice across the full range of commercial services, including regulatory matters and contractual support.
Confidential information relating to your business is one of the most important assets that you have.
If you are letting somebody have access to your confidential information as part of a service they provide to you, or as part of a service you provide to them – or if you are considering entering into a new arrangement with a third party and need to share information with them to properly evaluate this, then it is recommended to have a confidentiality agreement in place, before you part with any information.
We can help you protect what’s important to your business.
A confidentiality agreement helps your business to protect the secrecy of any information you are sharing and can set limits on what this information can be used for by the recipient. If you are considering providing confidential information to a third party, please call our Business & Commercial experts and we can advise you about how best to protect that information, before it is shared.
Data protection is an increasingly important area of compliance for any business that holds personal data – whether this relates to customers, employees or any other individuals. We can help you to fulfil your data protection obligations.
Our experts are vastly experienced in helping support organisations in all areas of data protection and crisis management – from advice on how best to increase the protections you have in place and dealing with subject access requests, to navigating data breaches and responding to complaints.
A good starting point is having strong compliance processes in place. These include a proper data protection policy and privacy notice, as well as ensuring that your employees understand the data obligations placed upon the business and how to respond appropriately to situations that may arise. We can advise you on how best to increase the protections that you have in place.
One of the more commonly encountered challenges that data protection compliance presents are subject access requests. This is where an individual asks for copies of the data your business holds in relation to them. These requests can be tricky to respond to and there are rules and processes that you must follow in doing so. In addition, you may have data that you are nervous about sharing and you may want to know whether you can withhold. We can advise you on how best to respond.
A data breach occurs when personal data that your business holds is accessed by somebody that does not have permission to view it. This could be because the data is lost, sent to the wrong person accidentally, or even stolen. If your business has suffered a data breach, there are rules about the way in which you should respond and time limits for doing so. We can advise you on how best to respond to the breach.
No matter how good your data protection compliance is, from time to time you will likely have somebody that is unhappy with how you have used or protected their data. We can advise you about whether we feel the complaint is well-founded and how best to deal with it
Intellectual property covers a broad range of protections which exist to allow your business to secure the things that it creates and also its brand. Those intellectual property protections which are most commonly encountered by businesses are trademarks and copyright. We can help you to protect your creative work and your brand. Our experts can help you and your organisation with trademarks and copyright – whether that’s advice on how to protect your brand and assisting you through the process involved, or if you have any concerns regarding infringement and guidance over permissions and protection.
Trademarks help to protect the identity of your brand – the things which help your customers or clients to identify your business. Most commonly these are business names, corporate logos or marketing catch phrases or straplines which make people think of your business when they hear them. Trademarks can be a surprisingly affordable way in which to protect these associations and ensure that no other business can unfairly take advantage of the brand that you have built up. We can talk you through everything you need to know, from how a trademark can help protect your brand to what is involved in the process.
You may be faced with a situation where you have been contacted alleging that something you are doing is infringing the trademark of a third party. Receiving news like this can be stressful and it can be difficult to know what to do next. Burying your head in the sand and hoping it will go away is seldom the right response. We can advise you on whether we think that the complaint you have received is well founded and how best to deal with it – and advise you about the best way forwards and seek to put your mind at rest.
Copyright is a protection that exists in a range of works, where some level of effort has gone into creating them. It can exist in written documents, artistic and photographic works, musical pieces and even less ‘creative’ things such as databases and fixture lists. Copyright protects the works in question from being copied or used without permission, subject to a small number of limited exceptions. We can explain exactly how the law relating to copyright works – helping you to understand whether things your business has created are protected, if you are able to use works created by other people, or provide advice if you have been told that you are using somebody else’s copyright works without their permission.
If you are considering providing or taking a loan, it is vital to put in place a loan agreement. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable about asking for a loan agreement to be put in place and worry that it suggests that they don’t trust the other person to repay it. But this shouldn’t be the case at all. There are a whole host of things that it is important to be clear about – when the loan is due to be repaid, any interest to be charged, any circumstances when the loan can be called in early, and any restrictions on what the loan can be used for.
A loan agreement helps to ensure that everybody is on the same page and actually helps to prevent people from falling out, which could otherwise happen if they later discover that they had different understandings of what they thought they had agreed.
If you are considering taking out a loan or providing a loan, we can discuss with you how putting in place a simple loan agreement can give everybody peace of mind that everything has been properly agreed. Our experienced team regularly helps our clients negotiate and draft such agreements and would be happy to discuss with you, your particular set of circumstances and how we can help.
It is vital for your business to have sensible commercial terms in place with your customers, suppliers and contractors. If something goes wrong and you don’t have a contract in place, you could be left without vital protections and it may be you left footing the bill.
Well-drafted contracts or terms and conditions help to ensure that you and those that you serve – or those that serve you – are all on the same page. It should help to avoid costly mistakes or misunderstandings, by being clear about who is responsible for what and how the relationship will work.
Whether you regularly enter into certain types of agreement and could benefit from template terms, or would like to start a new relationship or project in the right way, our commercial experts can help support you and your organisation with our agreement review and drafting services.
Many businesses that enter into certain kinds of arrangements on a regular basis (for example, selling particular goods or services to their customers, or routinely using the services of third party contractors) find that having template agreements or template terms and conditions can help to make the process of agreeing terms a lot more straightforward. If you don’t currently use template terms in your business, but think you could benefit from having them, we can discuss which template terms we think you might benefit from and how best to get them in place.
You may be about to enter into a new project or relationship which will require a contract. You may have been sent a contract to review or you may have been asked to provide a draft of the contract yourself. In either case, our Business & Commercial team are experts at reviewing and drafting all manner of commercial agreements, whether they are with your customers, your suppliers or your contractors. We can work with you to help secure a contract that protects your business and allows your new project or relationship to start on the right footing.
We work in partnership with our clients to deliver commercial, business-focused advice with the aim of maximising profits and minimising business risk.
Our Business & Commercial team are recommended in four categories in The Legal 500 UK 2025 – with several colleagues receiving special recognition and head of department Jamie Arnall acknowledged as a ‘Leading Partner’.
We are proud to hold national accreditation from both The Law Society and the Customer Service Excellence Quality Mark for our commitment to client care.
Our Business & Commercial team is made up of highly experienced legal professionals dedicated to providing strategic advice and tailored solutions for all your business needs. With extensive expertise in handling complex commercial transactions and business matters, our team is equipped to support you in navigating the legal challenges of the corporate world, ensuring that your business objectives are achieved with precision and efficiency.