Corporate and Commercial

Corporate law is to do with companies. It is about how they are controlled and run. But Corporate Law is also about how companies are bought and sold and financed. In one way or another a lot of our work comes down to how people put money into a business and how they get money out.

Commercial law is to do with the things companies (and sometime individuals) do in business. Above all it’s about contracts: about buying things and about selling things, and about the terms – the contracts – on which they do so. Sometimes the things bought and sold are stuff, but often it is services of various kinds. In one way or another a lot of our commercial work comes down to helping clients to identify business risks (and hopefully opportunities) and working out how to deal with them.

Shareholder agreements are contracts between the shareholders in a company. Usually a shareholders agreement involves all the shareholders of the company, but it doesn’t need to.

Every company has a constitution – the company’s articles of association – but a shareholder agreement will supplement this. What the shareholder agreement says will depend on the circumstances, but usually one of the main issues to be covered is around how the company is to be run, how decisions are to be taken and ultimately who controls it. A shareholder agreement may also cover things like the transfer of shares.

If you are going into business with someone else, or indeed several other people, and you are not forming a company together, the chances are you are in a partnership with them.

Partnership agreements formalise the arrangements between the partners in a business. They cover things like how decisions will be made, how accounts will be kept, how profits will be shared and what will happen if one of you wants to leave. Agreeing these things will hopefully give your business a stable foundation and help to avoid disputes arising in the future.