CLIFFORD CHANCE

Corporate

We are a respected, highly experienced global Corporate and M&A practice. What makes us a highly respected international practices is our client base, the mandates we win, our industry expertise, as well as our reputation for creating value for clients and investing in relationships.

We advise clients on public and private M&A, disposals, demergers, joint ventures, restructurings, corporate governance and regulatory compliance, with a particular focus on complex, cross-border transactions. Our integrated team includes experts in antitrust/competition law, funds and investment management, insurance, private equity and public policy.

Our clients include many of the world's leading companies including more than half of the Global Fortune 500. Our extensive global reach, combined with international deal execution skills and local market knowledge, provides clients with access to 200 partners and a further 500 lawyers with global and local capability.

Our team also offers clients the combination of focused technical and industry expertise across 12 sectors from financial services through to energy & resources and healthcare. We are also supported by partners in our market leading finance, capital markets, litigation, tax, pensions, employment and real estate practices.

Insurance

We are a trusted advisor to the world's leading insurers and reinsurers on complex transactions, disputes, financing, regulatory and commercial matters. We offer a global team of over 200 fee-earners providing first class domestic and cross-border advice across the world's main financial centres and the emerging markets.

Through our extensive global network of offices in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, we can offer an ideal ability to assist insurance companies throughout their global operations and on their international expansion plans.

Our integrated cross-practice team includes sector experts from across our corporate and M&A, regulatory, banking & finance, capital markets, dispute resolution, antitrust, tax, real estate, IT/IP pensions and employment teams.

Reputation for acting on ground-breaking, first of a kind mandates

As a highly experienced practice we work at the forefront of the market advising clients on the latest developments and issues facing the sector. We can offer clients support across the full range of their legal needs, including on:

• Large cross-border M&A transactions
• Complex reorganisation and restructuring
• Longevity risk transfers / bulk annuity buy-in
• Alternative risk transfer arrangements including Insurance Linked Securities (ILS), Value-in-Force transactions and derivatives
• Global and local market regulatory enforcement
• Major insurance/reinsurance disputes
• Distribution, outsourcing and other commercial contracts

Trusted advisor to the world's leading insurance and reinsurance companies

We advise clients from across the global life, general and reinsurance markets including Admiral, Allianz, Assicurazioni Generali, Aspen, AXA XL, Chubb, Domestic & General, Legal & General, LV=, Willis Towers Watson, MetLife, and Swiss Re. We also advise insurance brokers, London Market participants, Bermudan based insurers, mutuals, run-off specialists and banks as counterparties to insurers.

We can offer our clients our practically applied Intellectual Property knowledge and expertise, as well as a deep understanding of the challenges involved with conducting a market leading, international business in a constantly evolving technological environment.

Our lawyers handling Intellectual Property work collaborate closely with our antitrust experts in finding solutions to the issues that can arise from the tensions between the two areas of expertise.

Intellectual property advice

Our Intellectual Property teams offer a breadth of experience in Intellectual Property transactional and advisory work, covering the full range of Intellectual Property subjects, in both domestic and international contexts. Like our IP disputes lawyers, most of our transactional and advisory Intellectual Property lawyers focus on specific sectors and bring both pure and applied legal knowledge to client projects.

Intellectual property disputes and enforcement

Our Intellectual Property lawyers have extensive experience of strategizing, pursuing and defending Intellectual Property disputes in a wide range of forums. Our Intellectual Property lawyers are used to dealing with technical and specific subject matter, and many of them focus on specific sectors, giving them an applied knowledge of how Intellectual Property is exploited in practice. They frequently work with colleagues and external local lawyers in other jurisdictions to ensure claims are pursued consistently and in the most appropriate forums.

They will pursue and defend cases aggressively and effectively but are able to resolve a high percentage of disputes by negotiated settlements.

Litigation & Dispute Resolution

A global economy, diverging legal systems and increased cooperation amongst regulators presents companies with a wide array of legal challenges. We are well-positioned to advise on these issues and represent multinational clients in cross-border litigation, international arbitration and investigations.

Our global network provides an exceptional platform for handling major cross-border disputes and in recent years we have helped our clients to achieve success in some of the most complex international disputes and investigations.

We offer a seamless, integrated service across our network of offices for cross-border disputes and investigations, with expertise in individual jurisdictions but also an understanding of the interplay between different legal systems and regulations.

Clifford Chance's global Litigation & Dispute Resolution practice has around 500 lawyers based in the UK, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the United States, who are experienced in the full spectrum of litigation, dispute resolution and regulatory issues that our clients face. Our highly qualified teams are focused on resolving high risk litigation, international arbitration and regulatory investigations.

We are committed to resolving disputes as efficiently as possible and are focussed on offering solutions that are practical and commercial. Our peers know that we are always prepared to proceed, however, and recognise our record in delivering results for clients in major litigation and arbitrations. Our credibility is also acknowledged by regulators and prosecutors, which assists with the effective resolution of investigations and other negotiations.
 

Forensic Accounting team

Clifford Chance's legal teams are supported by an in-house team of specialist accountants and economists in London and New York who provide assistance and expertise on all financial aspects of litigation, arbitration and investigations. Assignments vary from ad hoc assistance on a specific financial issue to major investigations undertaken jointly with the legal teams.

Members of the team have worked alongside the Clifford Chance legal teams, clients and independent experts on many of the firm's most significant matters in recent years, advising on a range of financial, accounting and commercial issues across many different industries and jurisdictions

Why Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance is a long-standing trusted partner for sophisticated global clients and key players in the market in cross-border litigation, international arbitration and investigations.

Acting for the real estate industry's leading players, we advise on the full range of real estate-related transactions.

With an integrated network of highly qualified individuals, we have the commitment, resources and know-how to get your deals done, whatever and wherever they are.

Forward thinking and commercial in our approach, with a proven ability to deliver complex deals, we handle the entire property 'life-cycle' from the initial acquisition, development, leasing, joint venturing and financing through to the final exit.

Our scale, geographical reach and seamless, coordinated approach means that we can support any real estate project.

Tax, Pensions, Employment & Incentives

Truly global practices featuring first-class contentious capability ensure that our Tax, Employment, Incentives and Pensions groups are experts in their respective disciplines.

Unlike many competitors, we have offices with tax expertise across the globe and with over 170 tax advisors worldwide, we possess one of the largest international tax groups of any single law firm. We deliver commercial advice across the full spectrum of international and domestic tax issues and have unparalleled experience in advising on cross-border transactions.

Our experienced employment, incentives and pensions specialists work with clients from a wide range of sectors to address local and cross-border issues.

Clients, ranging from global businesses to small enterprises, have come to trust and rely on the experience of our dedicated teams based across our network of offices. To help you keep on top of the risks and opportunities arising from changes in the law, we track and anticipate the latest legislative proposals in the jurisdictions that are important to your business.