Franchising: Franchising Commercial Transactions and Corporate Counsel
Our Franchising Commercial Transactions and Corporate team has substantial experience in franchise specific matters.
Our experience includes drafting and updating franchise disclosure documents compliant with franchise registration laws; drafting, negotiating, and closing franchise agreements consistent with applicable franchise relationship laws; assisting with the sale of franchised locations and assignment of franchise agreements; assisting franchisors in the purchase and sale of franchised brands; creating newly branded entities and related roll out transactions; advising on franchisee financing matters; and assisting with transactions involving franchise advisory councils. Our lawyers regularly navigate franchise registration and relationship laws while providing guidance to franchisors domestically and those with global distribution platforms.
Commercial Transactions Capabilities
We have extensive experience helping clients structure, draft, negotiate, and document a full array of routine to highly complex commercial contracts, including vendor, lease, licensing, and other agreements. We partner with franchise clients to confirm the anticipated benefits and manage the commercial risks through good contracting practices appropriate to their business models. We assist franchised businesses in developing efficient and effective contractual infrastructures for new and existing products and services. With every contract, we seek to accurately reflect the contemplated commercial transaction and to balance risk mitigation with economic opportunity.
We utilize our strong business acumen and significant franchise industry experience in developing and maintaining supply chain management strategies with distributors and suppliers that minimize risk and align with our client’s business objectives. We actively represent franchisors in commercial transactions, which involve the purchase and supply of products and services throughout the global supply chain, particularly in the acquisition of products and services from suppliers and vendors, as well as the sale of products and services to franchisees. Our team is well-versed in how to proactively guide clients across supply chain issues to avoid disputes.
Our lawyers have extensive experience representing master developers, investors, and operators in the preparation and negotiation of standard resort and hotel agreements for major international hotel management groups in connection with hotel projects, including off-shore and on-shore hotel management agreements, asset management agreements, franchise agreements, resort club documents, rules and regulations, rental management agreements, amenity treaties, technical service agreements, licensing agreements, concession agreements, residential branding agreements, and property management agreements.
The intricacies of franchise law can be daunting, as can the varying regulations from state to state or country to country. Understanding these challenges in a business-minded and universal manner is essential for maintaining compliance across the franchising business spectrum and preventing costly mistakes. The vast knowledge and experience of our Franchising Commercial Transactions and Corporate lawyers around the world positions us to give franchisors practical advice and realistic solutions for every business challenge.
Corporate Counsel Capabilities
Our Franchising Commercial Transactions and Corporate team serves as counsel to franchise clients that are publicly traded companies, privately held companies, partnerships, financial institutions, private equity firms and other investment funds, management groups, and entrepreneurs. Our lawyers provide the tailored corporate and transactional counsel needed for our franchise clients around the world. We are poised to help franchised businesses navigate joint ventures, franchise buybacks, lending arrangements, equipment leases, management agreements, sale of company-owned units, and securitizations.
We provide seamless and full-service corporate counsel. We proactively counsel our franchise clients with respect to policies for achieving sound corporate governance and in compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the corporate governance rules of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. We also advise our clients regarding regulatory initiatives and deficiencies noted by regulators across the corporate landscape.
Our lawyers work with franchise clients to negotiate terms, conduct due diligence, evaluate risk, advise on tax structuring issues, analyze regulatory requirements, and coordinate the necessary regulatory approvals involved in the acquisition or disposition. We offer a complete array of services in connection with the transaction, including the negotiation and preparation of letters of intent, due diligence, drafting and negotiation of purchase and sale agreements, regulatory assessments and filings, financing, and closing documentation.
Overall, our Franchising Commercial Transactions and Corporate team has deep experience advising our franchise clients across various aspects of their daily operations including commercial transactions, franchise law, corporate governance, compliance and ethics, communications, employment law, intellectual property and information technology law, and government relations. We understand the legal and business challenges facing our franchising clients. With hundreds of corporate lawyers who practice in fully integrated offices located on five continents, we provide full-service corporate counsel to franchise clients facilitating the structuring, financing, and successful completion of domestic, international, and cross-border transactions. Our global network is highly skilled and has the proven ability to provide strategic advice to franchise clients with the goal of expanding their business’s global footprint.
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On 22 December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments (the final rule) to Rule 206(4)-1 under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the Advisers Act) to modernize the regulation of investment adviser advertising and solicitation practices.
On 7 March 2024, the Illinois Pollution Control Board proposed amendments to its Ground Water Quality regulations, which would set standards for selected per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances compounds at or near their levels of detection and would result in some of the most stringent standards in the country.
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