Andrew is a real estate partner with a broad range of experience and expertise in all aspects of real estate but with a particular focus on the sale and purchase of significant investment property and large scale portfolios, investment and property management and acting for national occupiers throughout a range of sectors. Andrew leads large property teams for several of our major institutional and corporate occupier clients and on corporate transactions with a substantial property element. Acting for and leading a client team for Travelodge Hotels Limited in relation to its rapid expansion plans in the budget hotels sector for nearly ten years; leading a team of 32 lawyers acting for British Land in relation to a sale of a 50% share in the Meadowhall Shopping Centre (a deal valuing the complex at £1.53bn).
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Ben is a litigation and dispute resolution partner specialising in finance litigation and fraud. Ben's experience involves all aspects of finance litigation including bringing claims for financial services clients and defending claims against those clients. These claims include enforcement and recovery actions, defending mis-selling claims, disputes regarding appointment of LPA Receivers, injunctive actions, fraud claims and dealing with complaints, including those made to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Ben acts for many clients in both the asset finance and asset based lending sectors. Ben also acts for commercial real estate and mortgage lenders, principally in professional negligence claims against solicitors and valuers and in contested possession claims. Ben has a particular specialisation in dealing with fraud claims and asset recovery, both in the financial services sector and for commercial organisations. This often involves taking urgent action to obtain freezing injunctions and search orders. Ben is a board director of the Yorkshire and Humber Fraud Forum, a not for profit company that brings together the private and public sectors to fight and reduce financial crime. Ben is a Certified Fraud Examiner. Ben often acts for leasing clients on Aviation and Marine matters. He typically advises clients on the enforcement of aircraft mortgages, repossession proceedings to obtain delivery up of Aircraft, in actions against third parties who have alleged liens and in associated guarantee claims. In respect of Marine Ben often acts for clients in relation to obtaining the arrest of ships in overseas jurisdictions and in Admiralty matters. Ben was seconded for 6 months to Nationwide Building Society in the role of Senior Counsel in Dispute Resolution. Ben principally advised the Commercial Division of Nationwide in respect of their high value and complex disputes arising out of their commercial lending. Ben advises clients on issues of Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Bribery and Corruption. Ben is Addleshaw Goddard's Anti-Bribery and Corruption Officer and is a Money Laundering Reporting Officer.
Bill is a partner in the commercial dispute resolution/litigation team. He specialises in heavyweight disputes. He has particular expertise in the management and resolution of procurement challenges, major IT project disputes, claims arising from the sale and purchase of businesses, contract terminations and the resolution of large scale business-critical supply/JV disputes. Bill has over 20 years’ experience in litigation and arbitration, together with all forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), including expert determination, negotiation and mediation. He acts for national and international clients and has considerable experience of advising both private and public bodies in a range of sectors, including health, transport, utilities, retail and technology. Examples of Bill’s recent experience include: acting for a wide variety of contracting authorities and utilities, as well as bidder clients on procurement challenges and achieving successful outcomes, by way of negotiation, strike out/summary judgment and swift partial re-run; advising ‘behind the scenes’ on highly sensitive procurement issues; assisting IT suppliers and customer organisations on resolving large scale disputes with IT outsourcing, changes in specification/scope, project delivery delays and performance failures, using escalated dispute resolution processes, negotiation, mediation, expert determination, arbitration and court proceedings; advising private and public sector organisations on complex and/or critical issues, including the management, renegotiation, default and termination of major contractual relationships; resolving high value completion account and warranty claims; dealing with several high profile judicial reviews in a number of sectors.
Partner dealing with investment fund and development work, landlord and tenant, and shopping centres; currently involved in a number of city centre regeneration schemes.
Partner specialising in general corporate lending, leveraged finance, restructurings and real estate finance: clients include HSBC Bank plc, Barclays Bank PLC, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Lloyds TSB Bank plc and Clydesdale Bank/Yorkshire Bank.
Deborah is Head of the Corporate team in Ireland. She has over 20 years experience advising on all aspects of corporate and commercial law, M&As to PPPs, commercial agreements and corporate governance matters. Deborah specialises in mergers and acquisitions and has advised on many corporate restructurings, private equity investments and joint venture arrangements. She also advises boards of directors on Directors Compliance Policies and provides guidance on the appropriate corporate governance approach and culture on boards of directors
Partner in the corporate division, based in the Leeds office. Specialises in M&A, for a mixture of private and public companies, and private equity transactions, acting for both private equity houses and management teams.
Partner in the commercial department, specialising in intellectual property. Georgina advises on a broad range of intellectual property matters, with a particular emphasis on agreements relating to the exploitation of IP rights including patent, trade mark and software licensing, research and development arrangements, confidentiality agreements and franchise agreements. She also has significant experience on IP matters in the context of corporate and finance transactions.
Ian leads the Sainsbury’s real estate team nationally and is the lead real estate partner for Threadneedle and Skanska in the Leeds office. General: involved in all aspects of commercial property work including sales and purchases (especially for institutional investors such as Threadneedle and VALAD), complex development projects (including acting for regional developers such as GMI Property Group and Horncastle Group Plc), acting for public bodies (such as The HCA and Leeds City Council) and landlord and tenant work (particularly in the retail sector acting for household names such Sainsbury’s, HOBBS and LEGO). Particular expertise in the food store investment market. Specialism: retail/Sainsbury’s/food store investment/high-value sale and leasebacks – recognised expert. Has developed an outstanding practice acting for Sainsbury’s where he has twice been nominated for their panel lawyer of the year and has recently been recognised as ‘exceptional amongst our panel lawyers’. Sainsbury’s have told Addleshaw Goddard that they routinely instruct Ian on more complex, higher value transactions and that they regard him as the ‘go to’ man for these projects. This is best demonstrated by the way Ian has developed the firm’s role acting for Sainsbury’s Property Investments (SPI). SPI recognise Ian as their principal advisor for sale and leasebacks and one of the leading experts in this niche field. These transactions are strategically important in raising capital for reinvestment and need to be turned around quickly whilst balancing investment value against operational flexibility. Ian’s work in shaping their lease has earned him a reputation for innovation (with one senior SPI executive describing Ian as ‘the most innovative lawyer I have worked with’). Credited by SPI as helping them ‘move forward the industry standard lease, not just for Sainsbury’s, but for the food store industry as a whole’. Other retail clients include HOBBS and LEGO and he is a key member of the firm’s national retail and consumer team.
Partner in the pensions team, head of SIPPs and pension products and director of Sovereign Trustees Limited, the firm’s corporate trustee company. Deals in all areas of the department’s work: including scheme advisory and trustee governance, corporate deficits and pension regulator issues, transactions and outsourcings, tax and benefits, pensions litigation, SIPPs and SSASs, auto-enrolment, master-trust and DC schemes.
Well-known nationally as an exceptional real estate finance lawyer. Undertakes a wide range of work in deal size and complexity, acting for lenders on standardised real estate investment products to large bespoke real estate and development finance transactions and restructurings.
Partner; construction and engineering, dispute resolution specialist (adjudication, litigation, mediation and domestic/international arbitration). Strategic dispute avoidance and managing risk advice on ongoing major projects.
Construction litigation specialist. Principally acting for employers and contractors in adjudication, litigation and arbitration.
Julie is the national head of the property litigation team. Having trained and qualified in London, Julie has dealt exclusively with property litigation since 1991. Julie specialises in all forms of real estate litigation including dilapidations, complex lease renewals, rent review, rights of way disputes, insolvency and general property management work and acts for most of the firm’s real estate clients including Threadneedle, British land and Sainsburys. She frequently delivers seminars and training sessions, both internally and to external contacts and clients. She has particular experience of the wide range of legal issues that arise when managing large property portfolios including shopping centres. She also advisies key developers on the interpretation of agreements and their obligations under such agreements. A key aspect of Julie’s work is managing risk for these clients. Recent reported cases involve acting for Jolan Limited a landlord/developer in a complex and contested lease renewal and disputed exercise of a break clause at a prominent building in Manchester which involved a successful seven week trial in the high court, the decision from which was also upheld on appeal. The potential development includes a hotel and three retail units. Crosso No 4 Unlimited and Others v Jolan Limited and Others [2011] EWCA Civ 1619 and also John Bemoley & Others v Philip Noble [2014] EWHC 2657 (CH).
Partner in real estate department with experience in a broad spectrum of commercial property transactions. Particular expertise is in acting for corporate occupiers and investors in the retail and leisure sector. Particularly skilled in managing large teams, helping clients realise value from their existing portfolios, and advising on national acquisition programmes. Extensive experience of sale and leaseback transactions and large corporate disposals and acquisitions. Heads up the firm’s hotel and leisure sector group.
Mark is a partner in the firm’s corporate group. Mark has undertaken a broad range of UK and crossborder transactional work, including mergers and acquisitions, joint venture and shareholder arrangementss. Mark has a track record of advising on transactions in the financial services sector with a focus on the wealth management. His representative matters include advising the partners of the law firm Ogier in respect of the disposal of their fiduciary services business to Electra private equity, advising mutual insurer Simplyhealth on its acquisition of Groupama Healthcare, advising the shareholders of the Jersey Trust Company Group on the investment by Close Brothers Private Equity, advising Daniel Thwaites Plc on the disposal of its ‘Beerco’ division, advising Fx Corporation on the disposal of its UK retail foreign exchange business ‘Eurochange’ to Notemachine and advising Newcastle Building Society on the disposal of its prepaid cards business to the German consumer bank Wirecard AG. Mark has been particularly active advising on transactions for the AA and SAGA including advising on acquisitions in the domiciliary care, personal finance and driver services sectors, advising on the ABS applications for AA Law and Saga Law and associated joint venture arrangements and advising on Saga’s joint venture with Tilney Bestinvest.
Paul is an energy infrastructure and regulatory specialist with significant experience advising on the development and funding of large scale energy infrastructure and on regulation in the energy and utilities sectors. He advises a broad variety of clients across the sector including developers, investors, supply chain, funders, regulators and sponsors (including central and local government bodies) with clients including National Grid, Drax, Britvic, Siemens, Foresight, Equitix, NIBC, DZ Bank and John Laing Investments. He advises on commercial and regulatory matters within the electricity, gas, smart (including smart metering and battery storage) and renewables sectors advising across the technology spectrum and he is recommended in Legal 500 for work in renewables. He led the Addleshaw Goddard teams advising Biogen on three AD PPPs in the Welsh Food Waste Programme, he also advises John Laing on the acquisition and project financing of a number of wind farm projects, various funders and developers (Trina, Canadian Solar) on the development and financing of solar pv schemes, MAPs and energy suppliers on smart metering roll-outs and on CHP schemes for MediaCity, Network Rail, Citibank and Hub. Paul also advises clients including MCS, LCCC, Ofwat, and British Sugar.
Partner advising corporate clients and trustees on all aspects of ongoing pension schemes and advising on independent trusteeships (both ongoing and statutory trusteeships dealing with schemes in winding up); specialising in advising pension providers, employers and trustees on all legal aspects of trusteeship and compliance with the regulatory regime, and the Pensions legislation; advice in relation to pension scheme documentation; dealing with the regulatory authorities including the Pensions Regulator, the Inland Revenue and the Pensions Ombudsman.
Rachel advises trustees and corporates on all aspects of occupational and personal pension schemes. She has particular expertise in pension scheme mergers, DB liability management, corporate transactions and employer debt issues. She is the team's expert on buy-in and buy-out transactions. She is also part of the SIPPs and pensions products team and advises SIPP providers and trustees on establishing and amending SIPPs and all day-to-day queries relating to the operation of SIPPs. Her clients include the trustees of the lbstock Pension Scheme, Shepherd Building Group, WPP, Carclo plc and the Co-operative Group. Rachel's recent experience includes: advising the UK subsidiary a NASDAQ listed business specialising in connectivity infrastructure and services for global deployments of broadband networks on all their UK pensions issues, including advice on scheme funding negotiations, how to manage a legacy error where administration practice did not accord with scheme rules and the buyout and wind up of the DB pension scheme with a UK insurer; advising the trustees of a DB scheme in relation to administration errors resulting in overpayments to members and the legal and practical issues for the trustees in determining how to manage this and mitigate the risk of complaints from affected members; advising a sponsoring employer of a DB scheme on the ability to switch from RPI to CPI for pension increases as part of wider strategic discussions regarding the DB scheme; advising the trustees of a DB scheme on a very successful pension increase exchange exercise and a subsequent enhanced transfer value exercise; advising trustees on the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the steps required to ensure compliance; advising a sponsoring employer on potential equalisation exposure in over 25 different legacy pension arrangements including advice on both technical and strategic and practical issues relating to how to deal with remediation of benefits; advising a sponsoring employer on the switching off of long-standing discretionary practice previously exercised in member's favour and the legal risks including whether the discretion may have converted into a legal right; advising the trustees of a £600mil+ DB scheme on the closure to future accrual undertaken by way of extrinsic contracts with members and their obligations and duties; advising a corporate in connection the pensions issues arising out of a major disposal of certain divisions of the business which participated in the group's DB pension scheme, which included putting in place a £15mil pensions bond with two bond providers for the benefit of the purchaser; advising the trustees of a DB scheme on a professional negligence claim and potential rectification claim arising out an historic drafting error in their governing documents; advising in connection with the complex separation of benefits in a SSAS arising out of a business dispute; and advising numerous clients on changes to their life assurance arrangements and the introduction of excepted group life schemes and advising on the governance of these schemes.
Partner specialising in retail financial services and financial services transactional work. Advises a wide range of clients on regulatory compliance with the Consumer Credit Act 1974, Mortgages FCA Handbook, Payment Services Regulations, unfair contract terms and consumer protection. Also significant experience in debt portfolio transactional work, and FSMA Part VII Banking business. Clients include Barclays Bank, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC.
Head of finance disputes and head of litigation north. Partner specialising in all aspects of banking and finance litigation and dispute resolution but with particular expertise in asset finance litigation; advises a number of major asset finance companies on a variety of disputes and obtaining urgent return of assets via injunctive relief. Advises lenders on claims against solicitors and valuers, defended possession actions, and claims against lenders. Regularly resolves disputes via mediation.
Partner working in the Technology and Outsourcing team. He has significant in-house experience from four secondments: with a multi-national FTSE 100 manufacture, a major financial institution, a multi-national insurance company and Aegon.