The entreprises we target tend to be small and medium size businesses, which have a crucial need for legal support. Company executives often have to make strategic choices on their own. Such choices may have legal consequences. As a result and in addition to the in-house counsel's analysis, the assistance of a qualified outside expert and partner who is experienced in a wide range of legal areas and is totally independent, guaranteeing an impartial approach, is necessary.

Backed by its in-depth specialist knowledge of precedents, gained from similar cases, our team can provide sound advice during the very early stages of each decision and at every phase in the company’s lifecycle.

Having applied their advice to real-life situations, members of the team dealing with litigations are particularly well qualified to assess the risks involved, then select and implement an out-of-court or in-court settlement strategy for any lawsuit.

Whether giving advice or dealing with litigation, our team can demonstrate creativity and adapt itself to the client’s mindset and environment.

* Assistance to companies in day-to-day transactions linked to their businesses or their organisation

Our team offers advice and assistance in choosing the right legal form of a company. It also helps to draft corporate documents and any contracts that govern :

- relationships between the company and its partners, such as general sales/purchase terms, documents to set up distribution networks, business agreements (sales agency, supplies, leases, IT contracts, licences, etc.), 

- relationships between the company and its management (profit sharing schemes in particular),

- relationships between the company and its employees (employment contracts and profit sharing schemes in particular),

- and status of the company's intangible assets (trademarks, patents, designs and prototypes).

* Assistance to companies in restructuring transactions or expansion operations

Given that clients are often keen to make acquisitions, our team members can help with all types of purchases (e.g. companies, on-going business (fonds de commerce), lease rights, assets and real estate). Besides its technical expertise, other qualities offered by our team include availability, responsiveness and excellent negotiating skills, bearing in mind that the terms and conditions of an acquisition are often just as important as the price agreed between the parties.

Businesses may expand by taking over an ailing company. Our team can coordinate this transaction by liaising with the traditional players in this area to ensure its successful completion (due-diligence process, draft of purchasing offers...).

Our team also assists companies in their restructuring, regardless of whether they are solvent or in financial difficulties (court appointed expert (mandat ad hoc), creditors' settlement (conciliation), French Chapter 11 procedure (procédure de sauvegarde), bankruptcy procedure, winding-up). In particular, our team is involved in the negociations with the investors or the banks, and assists the clients in the completion of the transactions.

* Assistance to the Manager

In addition to giving advice to businesses, we can help entrepreneurs structure and manage from an estate point of view their professional or personal assets, plan for their transfers, and optimise their taxation. Drawing on our in-house staff (tax specialists) and outside experts (notaires and bankers), we can access the resources needed to deal with all the entrepreneur’s issues.

In particular, Denis Salama coordinates real estate transactions, which have become more and more complex due to the growing number of participants involved, the sophistication of the financing and the structuring of these operations. This assistance requires the skills of a 'conductor' capable of completing the transactions within the alloted time.

Litigation is a major activity for our team, which can defend cases skilfully and forcefully before the relevant courts or arbitration services. The partner who manages this team has been appointed as an arbitrator by the “Collège Européen de Résolution des Conflits”

Our scope of expertise includes post-acquisition litigation, conflict resolution between shareholders, performance of agreements, performance and termination of employment contracts and directorships, counterfeiting, unfair competition, litigation in the context of the company's financial difficulties and litigation in connection with business leases.

We realise that legal proceedings can be slow and uncertain, so we tend to advise our client to opt for a negotiated settlement if this is in our client’s best interests.

Our clients export themselves, and we go wherever they go.

 Our team is required to work on increasingly cross-border projects, driven by partnerships, emerging markets, export growth, and foreign investors’ appetite for the French market.

Several years ago, we decided to extend our expertise further by joining LawExchange International (www.lawexchange.org), a network of lawyers spanning 20 countries (United States, Europe, Asia). This network provides us with useful contacts and enables us to exchange information about different domestic markets and contractual techniques. Nonetheless, we may occasionally decide to work with correspondents from outside our network, whenever this is in our client’s best interests.

There are many reasons why you should choose to work with the Contracts and Business team.

Our team can adapt its organisation to your company’s needs in order to provide the best service at any time.

To sum up, we are not company executives, but lawyers who understand company executives and have the drive and enthusiasm to help you expand your business.