McGuireWoods LLP

The firm: McGuireWoods is an international law firm known for quality, innovation, responsiveness and diversity. It has 1,100 lawyers in 21 locations including London, New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Chicago. The firm has a reputation among clients and peers as one of the most client service centric law firms in the world. McGuireWoods London LLP distinguishes itself by offering partner-led service as well as strong cross-border relationships.

Principal areas of work
Banking and finance: The firm acts for financial institutions and borrowers on a broad range of debt finance transactions with particular expertise in syndicated and bilateral credit facilities, real estate finance (both investment and development), leveraged and acquisition finance, asset finance and infrastructure and project finance. The team advises on all aspects of structuring and documenting credit facilities. The team also advises agents, lenders, hedge counterparties, borrowers and debt funds on leveraged finance transactions in Europe and the United States, including unitranche, super senior, term loan B, second lien and mezzanine finance.

Corporate: The firm is known for providing high-quality counsel on complex domestic and cross-border transactions as a result of its cross-functional, client-focused and collaborative approach to providing legal services. Clients praise the team for its ability to staff transactions appropriately, ensuring timely and swift completions that benefit its clients’ budgets and business needs. The firm has a cross-border corporate practice that supports a range of clients in multiple jurisdictions, including emerging startup companies, industry-leading enterprises and financial institutions. The areas in which the corporate team practices are M&A (public and private), private equity, joint ventures, commercial contracts, general corporate, supply chain and corporate reorganisations. It has a thriving private equity practice assisting private equity firms, management teams, sponsors and portfolio companies alike. The sectors in which the corporate team is particularly active include healthcare, regulated senior living facilities, hospitality, retail and technology.

Data privacy and security: The team advises and assists with data protection compliance (in particular GDPR and e-privacy requirements); information governance, determining extraterritorial applicability; data mapping; drafting policies and notices; information management systems; determining the optimal method for cross-border data transfers; drafting and negotiating data processing agreements; data subject access requests; and managing data incidents and reporting.

Employment: The London office advises UK and global corporate clients on contentious and non-contentious complex and strategic employment legal issues. UK advice covers most aspects of employment law – contractual, statutory and regulatory – with particular emphasis on sensitive restrictive covenant and confidential information disputes, whistle blowing and discrimination cases, corporate reorganisations and restructures and boardroom terminations. The practice has a growing reputation internationally advising on complex, cross-border employment issues.

Equity capital markets: The firm’s equity capital markets practice represents sponsors, nominated advisers (NOMADS), brokers and issuers and they represent these clients on a variety of work including IPOs (main market and AIM), secondary placings, reverse takeovers, general advice on Listing Rules and AIM Rules compliance, corporate governance, disclosure and transparency requirements, market abuse regulations, prospectus rules and financial promotions.

Litigation and dispute resolution:The firm has extensive experience handling a broad range of complex, big-ticket, commercial disputes, especially in the High Court and international arbitration forums. The team is particularly adept at handling large-scale high-profile cases, including those involving allegations of fraud and those requiring urgent interim relief. McGuireWoods also has notable experience in contractual, joint-venture disputes, banking, swaps and derivatives, energy, insolvency, intellectual property and trade secrets, and shareholder disputes.

Real estate: Working on both contentious and non-contentious matters, the team provides full legal service to a range of clients encompassing institutional investors, large multinationals, growing corporates, developers and financial institutions. Areas of expertise include corporate real estate, investment, funds, development and regeneration, finance and hotels and leisure. The team advises clients on all aspects of acquisition, development, management, assets and disposal.

EU and UK competition law: The team handles all aspects of EU and UK competition law including merger control, state aid, cartels, licensing, distribution, IP aspects, abuse of dominance and compliance (including providing compliance programmes/training and undertaking audits). The firm also deals with all litigation aspects of competition law before the EU and UK courts and regulators.

Financial crime: The London office represents corporates and executives in the full range of financial criminal investigations, compliance and enforcement matters, both nationally and internationally. The firm represents clients in complex, high-value, multijurisdictional white-collar crime litigation. The firm assists clients in enforcement action led by the Serious Fraud Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Financial Conduct Authority, City of London Police and the National Crime Agency and in US DOJ and SEC investigations. The firm guides clients through the entire investigative process and, where necessary, represents them at trial. McGuireWoods is known for its meticulous internal investigations work covering bribery, corruption, money laundering, insider dealing and the full spectrum of financial criminal conduct. The London team has undertaken work for leading financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers.