Advice On Business Contracts – What We Do And How We Help

Contracts are everywhere and by having effective commercial contracts you can promote and safeguard your business from unnecessary risk.

Any agreement a business makes forms a contract, so it is vital these contracts sit in line with the business’ future as well as protecting its interests today. At Wilson Browne our award-winning team work closely with our clients offering high quality and coherent advice to ensure your business contracts are fair, compliant and clear-cut. 

Contract Drafting

Our Team drafts your commercial contracts with precision and clarity using plain English to avoid future disputes. We carefully consider the legal requirements and follow recent developments in the law to ensure that our advice to you is timely and accurate.

Clarity is very important in contract drafting as it avoids subjecting the contract to multiple interpretations which often lead to disputes that can potentially cost your business multiple thousands of pounds. Clear contracts also foster trust in the business relationship as there is no confusion from the beginning regarding the intention of the parties in the underlying commercial transaction or project.

The plain English writing technique is a high-level skill not widely used among the legal professionals. It is complex as it requires a deeper understanding of the technical aspects to be able to effectively communicate often complex legal concepts in ordinary English. Our team uses this powerful drafting technique to deliver contracts that are free from legal jargon and easy to understand.

We also employ other contract drafting techniques to produce contracts that are well structured and accurately reflect the agreement between the parties.

Risk Analysis and Reporting

The key job for our commercial team is to limit your business’ exposure to various risks so that your business can operate smoothly. Through contract review, commercial drafting or risk analysis, our team can identify, assess, evaluate, your potential risk in the context of a commercial transaction or project.

When required, our team will carry out an extensive risk assessment of your contract allocating the risks identified as high risk, medium risk or low risk and producing a report which is a comprehensive analysis of all the risks identified in your contract. Our team will develop strategies to help you address or mitigate the risks identified. It is your prerogative to act on our recommendations in line with your business aims.

Alternatively, you may only require a high-level contract review and a report on only the high-risk areas in your contract. Our team is on hand to assist with a structured written advice to meet your specific business goals.

We carry out comprehensive risk analysis to produce data audit reports and independent assurance reports designed to meet your regulatory compliance obligations. This can vary from an individual data protection audit or technology project, or through a broad audit of aal of your business’ processes and systems for compliance purposes. 

Contract Reviews

We take a meticulous approach to our contract review, innovating solutions to the thorny issues in your contracts to protect your business from serious reputational, financial, regulatory and legal risks. Our team pays attention to detail ensuring a comprehensive review of your contract is carried out when required. For instance, a thorough review of a supplier/customer contract can be carried out when needed before you commit to either a sale or purchase of a product or service that is crucial or ancillary to your business.

Our team assists other businesses to evaluate transactions before making binding commitments, ultimately saving them money and various risks in the future. You do not have to wait until a dispute is raised by the counterparty before you ask us to step in. Whether you decide to commit to a new business relationship or need to end an old business arrangement with a supplier, manufacturer or customer; whether this is for the purpose of smoothly running your business or scaling your business or indeed in the context of succession planning, our Commercial team is all the help you need.

Contract Negotiation

We diligently work to achieve a successful outcome on your commercial deals. Our work on contract negotiation varies from leading negotiation strategy on our clients’ behalf, to providing written advice to support our clients’ legal and/or procurement teams to effectively negotiate with a counterparty. Whether you want us to lead with the negotiation and deal directly with the counterparty, or simply want us to provide you with strategic points for you to consider and apply in your negotiations until the deal is complete, we are here to support you.

Our team is experienced in supporting clients with contract negotiation for a broad range of contracts. We understand when you need to compromise to maintain a long-standing business relationship and achieve a win-win situation in your commercial deal. We also understand when you need to heavily push-back on terms that will be detrimental to the business interests of your organisation. We are happy to engage you to fully understand your requirements and build negotiation strategies that are aligned to your business objectives.     

Exclusion and limitation of liability

A poorly drafted exclusion and limitation clause in a commercial can potentially bankrupt your business. We take extra care to ensure that your liability exposure is limited throughout the contract and especially in the exclusion and limitation clause.

We adopt approaches used by the courts in addition to common approaches used by contracting parties to ensure that your limitation of liability clause is effective.

We always ensure that the clause is drafted in accordance with the legal and legislative controls that affect the clause. Drafting or reviewing an exclusion and limitation of liability clause is a complex one. There are many methods we use depending on the context, but you can rely on our team to effectively review and/or draft this important clause with great care and expertise.

Other Agreements

Our team can also advise your business on other types of ancillary agreements like confidentiality agreements, introduction agreements, premises hire agreements, marketing agreements, transitional services agreements and unique bespoke agreements which we can design for you according to the commercial need.

When it comes to getting expert legal advice on contracts, no matter what type they are, “dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s” is paramount – getting it right now could save a lot of time, money and inconvenience later. Talk to our expert team today on 0800 088 6004 for a free, confidential, no-obligation initial chat.