Our corporate and commercial law team assist clients on a wide spectrum of joint ventures (JVs), from individuals pooling their finances and skills, to deals and collaborations involving large corporates.

With all clients and deals, we offer a partner-led service, focusing on commercial realities as well as high-quality legal advice.

How to prevent JV problems

If you’re thinking of setting up a joint venture – whatever the sector and scale – it’s important to set the right foundations for the deal and have provisions that are watertight. For example, what happens if you reach deadlock due to:

the JV partners disagreeing on the strategic direction?
one party wanting to exit?

Our extensive experience of dealing with JVs means we can set out structured provisions and parameters for these issues, and many more besides. We can also advise on whether you need a shareholders’ agreement.

Without such parameters, JVs could end in acrimony or expensive litigation. Getting our input at the beginning of the collaboration, rather than later on, can clarify roles and responsibilities, minimise risk, and prevent future financial pain.

Resolving JV disputes and breakdowns

We also work extensively with clients who did not get appropriate provisions in place at the outset, and need help with handling deadlock or other disputes, unwinding the JV, or sorting out liabilities.

In all this work, we aim to have the dispute negotiated rather than litigated, and the unwind resolved amicably. This can save you from significant costs and delays. In some cases, it could even repair the collaboration.