General commercial

Experience

• Acting for Nexeon Limited, a leading Imperial College spin-out which is developing silicon anodes for Li-ion batteries in various joint development agreements and other commercial agreements relating to the development of its silicon technology.

• One of the largest projects with which we have been involved recently was a tie-up between National Trust Enterprises and npower – this was a ground-breaking deal for NTE and the National Trust and was subject to considerable scrutiny by board members of the Trust to ensure that the tie-up did not conflict with the Trust’s preservation and environmental mission. Under the tie-up, npower is to provide NT-branded green energy offerings, as well as make multi-million pound payments to NTE for prescribed uses.
   

• Acting for this UK biotech on the acquisition of UK biomarker discovery company which owns proprietary biomarker discovery technology and rights in biomarker panels for specific diseases. On the IP/commercial side the transaction required extensive due diligence investigations of, and reporting on, the commercial agreements entered into by the target company and of the ownership position of the results of research carried out by the company (which was in many case unsatisfactory). Advice sought from the client’s patent agents on pending patents filed by the target led to recommendations to refile a number of patents. Owing to the target’s shortage of money pre-acquisition the patent portfiolio also required considerable and costly attention after completion.



• Providing IP and commercial advice to this University. On the commercial side the highlight was advice on a sub-contract between the world-renowned Science Policy Research Unit within the University and EDF Energy as part of a BERR-funded study into the effects on domestic energy consumption of smart metering technology.



• Advising a UK research council on it participation in a major multinational research collaboration investigating the feasibility of laser-driven fusion as an energy source. Advice involved negotiating a sub-contract with a Russian partner which for tax reasons had to participate though a separate institute. Negotiations with the Russian partner were hampered by the fact that the client was already subject to contractual commitments to other partners that could not be amended. We were able to find practical solutions that were acceptable to both parties without leaving the client exposed to significant risk.