Communications Transactional
Every project and transaction is the product
of a number of drivers – always competing, sometimes complementary,
often contradictory. The tension is acute, and complex, in
the Communications sector. The most successful projects and
transactions are based on a thoughtful and transparent balancing of
these tensions, which is reflected in the resulting contract.
To do this counsel must understand the business, technological and
legal considerations from the perspective of each of the
parties. Counsel also needs to translate deals into language
that is easily understandable by those who implement the
contract.
We bring these skills to each transaction that
we help to negotiate. We are able to do so because we
regularly counsel clients from across the entire communications and
media spectrum – customers, suppliers, intermediaries, networks,
rights-owners, innovators, talent – so we have broad experience in
approaching a wide range of deals from various
perspectives. We also consider it imperative to know what a
deal looks like from the client’s point-of-view. Several of
our lawyers previously worked as in-house lawyers and most have
been seconded to clients to work as in-house counsel.
Because counsel with a genuine understanding
of their client’s business achieve superior results at better
value, we invest in developing specialized transaction skills in
the Communications and Media sector. Many of our lawyers have
technical and engineering backgrounds, which enables them to fully
understand the technology driving the deal, as well as the parties
to the deal.
We also recruit from within industry and run a
secondment program so that our lawyers understand life in a
communications or media business. In short, we know the
technical jargon and we understand the functional significance of
those terms to the network and/or the end user.
Areas of Focus:
- Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures in
the communications sector, including in-depth intellectual property
diligence
- Communications technology supply/purchase and
import/export
- Vendor and customer service agreements on
behalf of communications service providers
- Service agreements on behalf of users of
communications services
- Supply chain and distribution chain
agreements for communications equipment vendors and handset
component manufacturers
- Telecom and technology strategic
sourcing
- Online services and Internet
- Communications patent prosecution,
commercialization, enforcement and freedom to operate analyses and
related opinions Tax planning, audit and appeals for communications
service and transactions