BPE Solicitors LLP

Alex Curtis

Senior Associate in BPE's Commercial Property team, Alex has over 15 years' worth of experience in commercial property transactional work. He specialises in retail, logistics, industrial and energy sector work, assisting clients with their acquisitions and development of new space and land. Alex is an integral part of BPE’s logistics team. He is regularly involved in complex, high value deals for the likes of Stobart Group and Eddie Stobart Limited. His depth of experience has allowed him to take on these transactions with minimal help and step in and run several transactions simultaneously.

Anna Wood

Senior Associate in BPE’s Construction and Engineering team. Her practice is primarily non-contentious construction, but she is also regularly consulted by clients in respect of dispute resolution.Anna’s client base is a sector wide mix including regional contractors, specialist sub-contractors, nationally regarded architects, national leisure sector brands, social housing providers, GPs, banks and other funders. These clients range from SMEs to PLCs. In addition to full development procurement advice, she is regularly engaged to provide due diligence to lenders and tender support to contractors and consultants. Projects are usually of the £7m-£10m range, although many are significantly larger. 

Anthony Rudge

Equity Partner and Head of BPE's Corporate team, Anthony specialises in and oversees the firms AIM and plc work. He has acted for plcs, private companies and serial entrepreneurs for over 30 years and his experience ranges from AIM and Official List stock market floatations, placings and fundraisings, to mergers and acquisitions. Over the years Anthony has built an impressive client list and reputation within the AIM and plc sector; acting on behalf of large regional businesses, as well as national plcs and significant London-based clients, including brokers and nomads. He has helped to drive forward BPE’s name and offering to those based in London, the South East and of course the South West; where those companies would have previously sought out larger city-based firms. The companies he acts for are established and growing players in the development, health, retail, leisure and technology sectors.  His client base includes (but is not limited to) a number of AIM listed and plc companies such as, Mears Group, Totally plc, Big Sofa Technologies Group, Integumen plc, Lightwave RF, Dotdigital Group and Sureserve Group plc.

Antonia Shield

Managing Partner, Equity Partner and part of BPE's Commercial Property team. She advises clients from their earliest acquisitions through to their high value and often complex exit routes, whether through IPO, restructures or disposal. She often assists other members of the Property team with larger deals, where the complexity and/ or size of the transaction demands senior input. She regularly deals with the joint-ventures and forward funding agreements which provide the structure for an on-going series of transactions.Antonia has worked with a number of prolific clients including Superdry plc and Pure Gym.

Clare Young

Partner and Head of BPE’s Private Client team, Clare specialises in advising high and ultra-high net worth individuals in relation to their personal planning and protection issues; along with business protection through our Corporate Wills package. Clare’s clients largely consist of entrepreneurs with significant current business interests across a wide range of areas and retired professionals with a significant asset base and often complex family circumstances. 

Dale Williams

Partner in BPE's Corporate team, Dale specialises in and predominantly focuses on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), funding and financing options for developing entrepreneurial business and established regional and national companies throughout the South West and beyond.Dale works closely with a number of major banking institutions and investment companies in order to secure funding or finance options. He also advises banks, such as Lloyds on their high value loans, investments and refinancing requests.He also has expertise in the renewables sector, advising a number of clients involved in solar, anaerobic digestion, ground source and wind. He assists clients with the setting up, project financing and disposal of SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) companies which hold the projects. Dale predominantly works with investment companies who are consolidating their portfolio of performing renewable assets and looking to finance projects. Dale also works alongside our Private Client team, to provide business owners with a ‘Corporate Wills’ package, encouraging them to review not only their personal affairs, but at the same time want to ensure the business is protected and prepared for future developments. He also advises business owners on EMI share option schemes and other tax-efficient employee incentives.His client base envelops a wide spectrum of sectors, from technology, retail and financial, to manufacturing, renewables and food and drink. His clients include Crowe UK LLP, Warner’s Budgens (Warner’s Retail), Rosemary Water, Active Electronics plc and Future Advanced Manufacture. Dale works closely with clients, supporting them throughout the transaction and life cycle of their business. He has a strong reputation in the South West and has become a go-to source of advice for many existing clients.

Doug Armstrong

Partner in BPE's Commercial Property team. Doug specialises in the acquisition, management and disposal of large investment properties for developers letting to international brands and global plc's; with transactions ranging from £1million to £30million and above. Throughout his career, Doug has acted on a number of high value transactions and matters, including an award-winning project in Leeds for long term client, Boultbee Brooks.Over the last year, Doug led a property portfolio refinancing project worth £30million. Acted on the procurement of a building in Brentwood, agreeing a simultaneous surrender of a lease to Canon and grant of lease to SKY; including a sale to an investment fund for £20million. He also acted on an acquisition of a prominent office in Aztec West and the sale of a new office build in Watford being let to Salmon (WWP company) to a fund for £15million. Doug also drew up the agreement with Abercrombie and Kent to allow the client landlord to stage renovate (a floor at a time) an office building, including new leases on completion and interim alternative accommodation in the intervening period. Doug also undertakes a wide range of other real estate work advising on landlord and tenant cases, pension fund purchases, property refinancing and development. He plays a key role in developing new regional business, with a current focus on retail, lifestyle and leisure sectors.

Emma Hickson

Senior Associate and Head of BPE's IT and Cyber team. Emma's expertise is in IT, technology, outsourcing, public and private sectors, and general commercial contracts. She regularly works alongside high profile firms within the South west and beyond.

Gavin Hughes-Jones

Partner in BPE's Commercial Property team, Gavin specialises in residential development and commercial landlords and tenants. Gavin also carries out residential conveyancing for clients and helps high net worth individuals and family owned companies.

Georgiana Applegate

Senior Associated in BPE’s Commercial Property team. In the past year Georgie has been responsible for the property aspects of a substantial multi-site sale for a household name retailer working closely with the BPE corporate team. In addition, Georgie has worked for another client in securing over £20million worth of property transactions but way of purchase, development and sale on structure. Georgie has now also become a pivotal member of the team which continues to work with Pure Gym Limited who are a longstanding Client of BPE’s in their continued growth.

Helen Cankett

Partner and Head of BPE’s Family team with 17 years’ worth of experience. Helen is also a Family Mediator and Collaborative Lawyer and is accredited by both the Law Society and Resolution.Helen specialises in all aspects of divorce and separation with a particular emphasis on the related financial aspects and over the last year, she has dealt with many high value and complex cases, assisting clients to either reach a negotiated settlement or representing them in Court proceedings. Helen also advises on Private Law Children Act applications, including internal relocation cases.Helen is also able to advise clients on wealth protection, through the use of Pre-nuptial or Post-nuptial Agreements or Cohabitation Agreements. She collaborates with the firm’s Corporate and Private Client teams to provide high net worth individuals and business owners with a “Corporate Will” package which considers the protection of both their business and personal assets, now and in the future.

Heyma Holmes

Partner in BPE's Employment team, Heyma has over seventeen years’ worth of experience working for clients on contentious and non-contentious employment matters. Heyma previously worked at Reed Smith and in-house for an e-commerce company. Most notably Heyma has particular expertise in advising businesses on corporate transactions and provides strategic employment advice on mergers and acquisitions, re-organisations, senior exits and Trade Union negotiation and consultation and she has an unrivalled depth of knowledge in TUPE and outsourcing. Heyma has a proven track record in complex employment discrimination (including equal pay) and defending collective national minimum wage claims, with reported cases in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Clients choose Heyma for her strategic, quick thinking approach and she is widely known for her commercial solutions and driven approach. Recent work includes advising on post-transfer fragmentation of services by a transferee as well as several complex Employment Tribunal cases including claims for whistleblowing, gender reassignment discrimination and disability discrimination (including a specialism in mental health).She is a client relationship partner for many key clients and has  been successful in tendering for Gloucester Rugby Club and UCAS this year. Heyma also provides bespoke training to clients’ HR teams and senior management. Recently she was involved in planning and drafting a whistleblowing process to roll out to a large train operator. Heyma is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) and regularly speaks at client training events, annual CIPD training and to business groups and growing entrepreneurs, such as The Growth Hub.Heyma has been appointed as Trustee of the Gloucester Rugby Club Foundation and will be supporting the foundation to achieve their charitable aims. Heyma has previously spent periods of time on secondment with several key clients  providing strategic advice and assist with key re-structure projects.

Iain Garfield

Partner and Head of BPE's Commercial team, Iain specialises in advising mid-market and SME companies on high-value and complex commercial contracts, particularly those with an international element. He advises clients on their trading contracts, terms and conditions and manufacturing and supply chains, how to protect and exploit their intellectual property, as well as advising on partnership and LLP agreements, and regulatory issues such as data protection and competition law.Iain has worked on transactions valued in excess of £1bn, spanning North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and the likes of South Africa and Australia.His clients include such well-known brands as Mears Group, Interserve, Gloucester Rugby, MandM Direct, Pure Gym, WeBuyAnyCar.com, Cotswold Outdoor, L3 Technologies, Motorcycle Live, Agria Pet Insurance and the Open Data Institute.

Jemma Jones

Senior Associate in BPE's Family team, Jemma has over 11 years' worth of experience. She specialises in all aspects of divorce and separation, with particular a strength and focus on Private Children Law. Jemma is the team specialist for children work. Her caseload also includes financial remedy work where her cases regularly involve clients with businesses. She has built a strong reputation in the area for providing robust advice and has helped to strengthen BPE’s offering to high net worth individuals and business personnel. Jemma is regularly referred to by former clients and other professionals in the field.

Jo Bewley

Head of Property Services for BPE and will become an Equity Partner as of 1 October 2019. During the past year Jo has worked closely with Mears Group Plc in respect of their mobilisation following their success in securing the new Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contracts for the provision of asylum services. Jo also continues to manage the roll of a £250million investment project involving the registered provider arm of Mears Group Plc. Jo has led BPE’s Healthcare Team which has to date worked on multiple surgery developments with two new projects being secured this year. In addition to the surgery development projects the team also completed a substantial sale for a Client of a care services business. In addition to the above Jo has worked on several real estate finance deals over the past year including acting for a Bank in a £20million deal for an offshore trust.

John Workman

Senior Partner at BPE and part of the company's Corporate team, John has over 35 years' of experience in corporate law, having also held roles in industry both as a lawyer and in management.John specialises in mergers, acquisitions, disposals and share incentive schemes. He works alongside all members of the Corporate team, training and encouraging personal development at all levels.  He works alongside entrepreneurial regional businesses, national companies and other professional service providers. John guides clients through the life cycle of their businesses, assisting with their growth, development, funding and exit. His clients include Mears Group plc, Spectrum Medical, Creed Food Services, Future Advanced Manufacture and Location Sciences Group plc.

John Carter

Senior Associate in BPE's Litigation team, John specialises in property litigation and professional negligence work.He is the main contact for commercial and residential property litigation within the firm. On the commercial side, dealing with all aspects including 1954 Act lease renewals, dilapidation claims, breaches of covenant, break disputes, forfeiture, trespass, etc. On the residential side, dealing with AST possession claims, residential leasehold extensions & collective enfranchisement and right of way disputes.John also supports with professional negligence claims. Professional negligence claims against professional advisers can take many different forms, depending on the type of adviser, and the nature of the advice that is being complained about. These types of claims can stem from any professional advisor but the most common are claims against solicitors, accountants or surveyors.

Kate Fountain

Senior Associate in BPE's Commercial Property team, Kate advises on all areas of landlord and tenant law, property disposals and acquisitions. Shae specialises in helping managing directors and owners of leisure and retail businesses manage and expand their property portfolio. Kate drafts and negotiates landlord and tenant agreements, sale and purchase contracts and investigates and reports on title matters.

Laura Pitcher

Senior Associate in BPE's Commercial Property team, Laura advises commercial clients on complex and challenging commercial property transactions. She also specialises in the acquisition, disposal, structuring and management of property portfolios, particularly in the supported living and social housing sector. Laura has acted for investment funds, social housing organisations and developers nationally.

Louise Grzasko

Senior Associate and Team Leader of BPE's Corporate team. Louise has over 15 years worth of experience advising public and private company clients on corporate and corporate finance transactions, including IPOs and fundraisings for AIM quoted companies, takeovers, schemes of arrangement, demergers, mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. Louise acts for a number of AIM quoted companies, including Totally plc, Sureserve Group plc, LightwaveRF plc, Open Orphan Plc, Integumen plc, Sosandar plc, Big Sofa Technologies Group plc and Location Sciences Group plc.

Natalie Claridge

Partner and Head of BPE's Residential Property team, Natalie specialises in complex sales of properties and the distribution of surplus funds from the sale. Natalie also provides training sessions to Lenders, Lender Asset Managers and Estate Agents.

Nicola Corner

Partner in BPE's Commercial Property team, Nicky specialises in Property Investment for the logistics sector. She advises investors in commercial property and logistics companies in landlord and tenant issues, helping them to manage their portfolios.Nicky works with companies that have property portfolios of up to £20million or more.

Peter Tyrrell

Partner and Team Leader of BPE's Private Client team. Peter works across all areas of Private Client, in particular lifetime tax estate planning for a number of entrepreneurs, professionals and other high net worth individuals. He also has a particular interest in dealing with issues surrounding mental capacity which might include completing and advising on Powers of Attorney or through dealing with complex applications to the Court for Deputyship Orders.

Philip Radford

Equity Partner and Head of BPE’s Litigation team, Philip has over 30 years' worth of litigation experience. His expertise lies within dealing with all business disputes, specialising in high value, complex, commercial disputes such as contract disputes, shareholder/director disputes as well as professional negligence claims against all types of professional advisor, intellectual property disputes and more recently classic car litigation.He also is leading the firm’s current expansion of their professional negligence offering, being an active member of the Professional Negligence Lawyers Association.Philip has been a qualified mediator for the last 17 years and has considerable experience in mediation disputes ranging from intellectual property to agricultural product disputes.

Rebecca Pike

Senior Associate in BPE's Family team, Rebecca has over 12 years' worth of experience in family law. She specialises in financial remedies and Private Children Law. She is also a Member of Resolution, and member of the Cheltenham Child Contact Centre Advisory Panel.

Rebecca Maxwell

Partner in BPE's Commercial Property team. Rebecca has led the way in development of BPE’s logistics offering. Since bringing them into the business in 2015, Rebecca has played a vital part in managing and maintaining an exceptionally strong relationship with large national plc's including the likes of Stobart Group and Eddie Stobart. She has been consistently praised for a quality communication, timely approach and keen eye for detail that has resulted in the completion of multiple multi-million pound deals. Over the last year Rebecca has been involved in a number of complex sub-sale and leaseback transactions. Such matters have had a sale price of circa £30million and involved working opposite well-known large city and international firms. Raising the profile of the firm and extending the teams depth and experience in such transactions. Rebecca also works for several regional clients and has recently secure a place on the panel for Blackfinch Group Investments.

Riyaz Jariwalla

Partner in BPE's Litigation Department. Riyaz has a breadth of experience in the IT and digital sectors, specialising in high value, complex commercial disputes but also intellectual property disputes relating to trade marks, designs, patents, copyright, confidential information, know-how and trade secrets.  Areas of work include specialist and novel types infringements (increasing online and in digital form), passing off, seizure of counterfeit goods, domain name recovery and defamation online and offline. In the last 12 months, Riyaz has represented an increased number of clients in relation to design infringement matters, and this continues to increase steadily, due to his specialist experience.He acts for a number of well-known super brands, leading businesses/retailers, public sector organisations as well as providing particular commercial and IP advice to retail, science and technology-based businesses. Riyaz Sector experience includes technology, retail, fashion, media and entertainment.He regularly represents clients in the UK courts as well as proceedings in the special European Community Court enforcing harmonised EU rights and regularly advises clients on strategy tackling cross border and multi-jurisdictional infringement and breaches. This requires him to engage with Foreign Counsel and national IP Offices.He has also given presentations on intellectual property and authors articles on intellectual property which increasingly overlap with topics involving 3D printings, drones, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.Riyaz has been an accredited mediator for over seven years and is recognised by the UK Intellectual Property Office as one of its approved mediators for IP disputes.

Robert Bryan

Equity Partner and Head of BPE’s Science and Technology team. Rob is a commercial contract and corporate governance lawyer, specialising in advising public funded STEM organisations, including learned societies like the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Open Data Institute, and universities. He has advised Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board) for the last 10 years. Rob is also known for his work in advising both senior executives and companies on the termination of employment contracts.Rob is a qualified Chartered Company Secretary as well as Solicitor and is a Non-Executive Director of several high-profile STEM organisations.In early 2019 he led a major project that considered the practical use of “data trusts”, which resulted in the publication of a report,  as a novel legal construct for encouraging ethical data sharing and transparent governance procedures whilst also ensuring privacy.

Sarah Lee

Partner in BPE's Employment team. Sarah qualified in 2004 and has over 15 years’ worth of experience in contentious and non-contentious employment matters.She has particular expertise in complex Employment Tribunal litigation, including appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal, as well as restrictive covenant and employment litigation in the High Court and Court of Appeal.Her High Court experience includes: a complex restrictive covenant matter which included defending interim injunction proceedings and avoiding an expedited trial by the careful negotiation of limited undertakings; and dealing with the reported case of Dyson Technology Limited v Pellerey in which she collaborated with commercial litigation colleagues to successfully defend Dyson’s application for an injunction to restrain Mr Pellerey from using confidential information and to successfully challenge the springboard injunction issued at the Court of Appeal.Sarah also specialises in restructure and redundancy processes, complex grievances and disciplinaries, whistleblowing, senior exits, GDPR and right to work, as well as delivering training to clients on areas including mock Tribunals, TUPE and restrictive covenants.Sarah’s clients tend to be directors and HR representatives within sectors including facilities management, manufacturing, logistics and charities. She is client relationship manager for key clients including Howard Tenens and The Helping Hand Company (Ledbury) for whom she acts as external legal counsel, providing strategic legal advice, support and training. Due to her high level of technical expertise, she regularly delivers training to clients and HR professionals, has guest lectured on the University of Gloucestershire’s CIPD course and is responsible for BPE’s monthly employment law updates.

Thomas Hall

Senior Associate in BPE's Litigation team, Tom specialsies in general commercial litigation. He advises on contractual and tortious claims, fraud actions, director / shareholder disputes (unfair prejudice petitions and derivative actions) and insolvency litigation (applications to wind up companies, restrain presentation or advertisement of winding up petitions and investigating antecedent transactions).