Practices

Corporate Advisory and Governance

Our expertise:

We counsel boards, directors and shareholders of listed, unlisted private and public sector companies on their obligations and rights under applicable governance regimes including the UK Corporate Governance Code. We also advise on related regulatory and company law requirements, including investor protection guidelines and stock exchange listing, market abuse and disclosure obligations. We work with clients on their establishment of robust and practical risk management and compliance programmes.

We have a depth of experience in advising on contentious shareholder/ director conflict matters.

Within the Group our lawyers bring specific experience from a wide range of industry sectors, including energy, telecommunications, technology, pharmaceuticals, life sciences and the public sector. These sector specialisms are supplemented with expertise in dedicated practice areas such as competition and regulation, pensions, employment, data protection and freedom of information.

Key areas:

• Compliance with the UK Corporate Governance Code, the Code of Practice for State Bodies and other governance regimes
• The Central Bank of Ireland’s requirements for credit institutions, insurers and other regulated financial services entities
• Directors’ liabilities and responsibilities
• Risk management and compliance programmes
• Corporate reorganisations
• Board structure
• Corporate responsibility
• Stock exchange listing, disclosure, market abuse and transparency obligations
• Shareholder rights
• Shareholder activism
• Handling director/ shareholder conflict

Key highlights include advising:

We advise companies, boards and investors on corporate governance and shareholder-related issues, including the handling of takeover defence and contentious governance and activist issues, notably for Kenmare Resources, Independent News & Media, One51.