Corporate Joint Ventures

YOU ARE the in-house lawyer for a large company exploring a joint venture. You've caught the mood of optimism surrounding the link-up.

All the talk among senior management is excited by the potential. It seems a venture made in heaven.

But now may be the right time for you to call Sebastian Briggs for a reality check, because his legal draftsmanship may be the best chance the joint venture has to flourish.

Sebastian, a corporate finance expert with lawyers Bond Pearce, says parties to collaborative deals must construct a durable framework for their relationship - and set it down in legal documentation.

"The law sets the terms of the relationship," Sebastian says. "And within that relationship there have to be checks and balances."

The same principle of rigorous relationship definition applies throughout corporate finance - to UK mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance law, and business mergers and acquisitions.

Sebastian says Bond Pearce's track record shows a fluent understanding of commercial realities.

"We focus on what the client wants to ensure that the detail of the legal framework is accurate," Sebastian says.

"And we ask: 'What can go wrong?' It's vital that a commercial director or in-house lawyer knows that all eventualities have been considered."

Bond Pearce has become one of the major corporate law firms advising the new economy, including energy and media clients.

"A significant proportion of my work has been in the renewable energy sector," Sebastian says. "Many clients have been involved in wind energy projects, but I have also worked on wave and tidal energy and biomass. And we are about to start some work on a bio-diesel project."

The Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession 2006 cited sources that rated Bond Pearce "the absolute number one in renewables".

The Bond Pearce corporate team is a broad church of corporate finance advice, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganisations, venture capital funding, joint ventures, corporate governance and capital markets.