Business is increasingly competitive and our clients' expectations of our services necessarily reflect this.  Our clients, who are sophisticated and knowledgable, require advice of the highest quality to meet their business requirements.  The firm strives to compete to the highest standards and to provide a personal, professional, innovative and commercial service supported by highly trained personnel and the latest Information Technology - the firm is year 2000 compliant.  The firm has enjoyed substantial growth in these areas in recent years and we are pleased that our clients consider that our standards and service are commensurate with their needs.

Medium/Large Businesses

The firm has been associated for many years with some of the largest industries and PLC's in Northern Ireland.  We have expertise in aircraft finance and ship building contracts and company sales, aquisitions, mergers and takeovers (including hostile takeovers) and reconstructions.  We also assist our clients with contracts, joint ventures, borrowing and security and in connection with property, commercial litigation and arbitration.

Small/Medium Businesses

To assist small/medium businesses, we provide a full range of services, including advice on:

1. Company and Partnership formation, forming joint ventures.
2. Compliance with legislation.
3. Formalising relationships with customers.
4. Standard terms of trading.
5. Drafting Agreements and advice on contractural liabilities.
6. Borrowing and Granting of security.
7. Aquisition, sales, mergers, takeovers and reconstructions.

The needs of the individual or corporate participants are also met.  Advice is given on a range of issues including:

1. The legal relationship between the participants and the business.
2. The rights, duties and liabilities of the participants.
3. The death or retirement of the participants.
4. The implications of insolvency law, particularly for Company Directors.

In addition to supporting our clients' interests, we provide a full range of personal services including conveyancing, wills, probate, tax advice and family law.

Banking

We act for a number of the main Banks in Northern Ireland advising on all aspects of acquisition and property finance relating to substantial commercial property developments.  We also advise these clients in relation to property and contract matters.

Commercial Property

Our firm acts for clients involved in commercial property development in Northern Ireland as well as looking after property matters for some of the province's largest employers.  As well as developers and institutional lenders, we are also retained by a number of "high street" retailers based both locally and in Great Britain to act on their behalf in connection with property aquisition in Northern Ireland.

We have considerable experience in acting in major property aquisitions as well as knowing, through our involvement with lending institutions, what will constitute a good and marketable title and therefore be acceptable to such institutions as security.  As a matter of practice particularly when there are proposals for the development of the site, we would work closely with the other members of the client's professional team, specifically the architect and quantity surveyor to ensure for example that the terms of the Building Contract and Letters of Appointment required the parties concerned to provide suitable collateral warranties which will be acceptable to our client's prospective tenants as well as any lender to whom it has recourse for finance.  Our work with tenants and the lenders enables us to anticipate what is likely to be required in this respect and to advise our developer client accordingly.

Because we have acted for a number of clients involved in a variety of different developments ranging from retail parks to industrial estates, we have considerable experience in putting together the various agreements and leases associated with these projects.  We are also conversant with the requirements of the institutional investors to whom our client may wish to sell the development at a subsequent date and seek to ensure through our negotiations on the terms of the leases in the development that the documentation remains in a form which will be acceptable to those investors.

Insolvency

Asset realisation and recovery is a substantial part of our work in this area.  Advice is regularly given to Receivers, Liquidators and Trustees in Bankruptcy on security, title to property, contractual liabilities, finance agreements, disclaimer of onerous property, licensing law and employment law.  Insolvency law has also put a greater emphasis on the examination and conduct of Company directors and bankrupts prior to and after insolvency.  We advise Insolvency Practitioners in the difficult task of assessing such conduct and providing litigation support where necessary.

Debt Recovery

Cash flow is vital to most businesses.  In addition to advising on the law, procedures and the cost of recovery and enforcement in Northern Ireland, we also provide valuable credit information (from public sources) to enable our clients to make informed decisions.  We also advise our business clients of credit and debt recovery procedures to minimise bad debt risk.  We recover debts for small businesses and large institutions including Banks and factoring companies and recourse is made to security enforcement and use of insolvency procedures.


       

Commercial & Property Law

Mark Tinman Ken Rutherford Ciara McCloskey