Home office: Manchester
Stephen is a pragmatic and solutions driven commercial lawyer with significant legal experience gained both in-house and in private practice.
Stephen is a Partner in the Corporate & Commercial team, specialising in commercial, intellectual property and technology law.
Stephen is a highly experienced commercial lawyer, advising on, negotiating and drafting various bespoke commercial agreements – including agency, confidentiality, consultancy, cooperation, distribution, event management, outsourcing, procurement, rights, sponsorship, software/website development and venue-hire agreements, software, patent and trade mark licences and standard terms and conditions of trade, service and supply.
Stephen has a genuine understanding of client priorities and the impact of different strategic approaches taken by organisations (operating in both the public and private sectors). He has advised various clients in a broad range of sectors and industries (including the cosmetic, hospitality, heavy industry, leisure, retail and sports), on a range of commercial contracts and assists primarily to manage corporate risk and potential liability.
The advice Stephen gives is extremely commercially and practically focused. The experience for this was partly gained in-house where he was involved in advising on the hospitality, ticketing and accommodation operations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™.
How Stephen can help you
Stephen specialises in providing pragmatic and commercial advice in relation to various commercial arrangements, and potential risk and liability. Stephen advice is to properly document all commercial arrangements to avoid future disputes, and try not to over complicate matters (as far as possible). Try to focus on the key commercial issues for the parties and seek to ensure that both parties get what they want from the arrangement (whether that be financial or otherwise).
Experience
- Main legal adviser to the T20 Caribbean Premier League (the premier 20:20 cricket competition in the Caribbean).
- Drafting a venue-hire and sponsorship agreement for Northumbria University to be entered into with the Newcastle Eagles Basketball Team, dealing with the hiring of sports facilities owned by Northumbria University to the Newcastle Eagles for its home games and the sponsorship by Northumbria University of the Newcastle Eagles.
- Advising on, drafting and negotiating software development and confidential agreements for a local business in the football industry.
- Drafting and negotiating a charter agreement for the charter of a cruise ship to undertake the route of the Titanic.
- Senior legal counsel at MATCH Hospitality who were/are involved in the management and sale of corporate hospitality programmes for major international sporting events, and authorised to offer ticket-inclusive hospitality and travel packages for various events (including the football world cup, ATP tennis finals at the O2 Arena in London and Formula One).
- Advising one of the UK’s fastest-growing variety store chains on their payroll management software, and supporting with contract negotiations.
- Advising on and negotiating a collaboration agreement and a supply agreement between a listed Swedish pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organisation, and their US distributor for various pharmaceutical products.
- Lead commercial solicitor to a Manchester NFT platform, KnownOrigin, in connection with its acquisition by, online market place, eBay (including providing transactional advise on commercial contracts/licensing, data protection, intellectual property and regulatory issues).
- Advising one of the biggest names in cricket on his appointment of a sales, distribution and multi-media marketing agency for his social enterprise.