Our Food, Beverage & Agribusiness Group combines our highly regarded corporate and M&A lawyers with our regulatory specialists, tax practitioners and top-ranking intellectual property, banking and employment lawyers. William Fry is at the forefront in advising companies in the food, beverage and agri-business sectors, always focusing on delivering the best results for our clients. Our specialist team has in-depth and extensive industry knowledge, from advising early stage companies on supply chain management, getting products to market and venture capital funding to advising large corporations both on an ongoing basis and also on large-scale transactions. We represent a broad range of clients across the sector, from large multi-national companies with Irish operations to indigenous privately-owned entities.
Areas of expertise include:
- Corporate transactions (including fundraisings, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, shareholder agreements and financing as well as corporate formation and governance);
- Commercial Contracts (including manufacturing, supply and outsourcing agreements, licensing and distribution agreements, advertising and marketing arrangements and research and development (R&D) licensing arrangements);
- Food Regulation (including advising on EU and Irish food safety and food labelling law, packaging and consumer issues and guidance on regulatory approvals, waste packaging, marketing of food products and national standards for food safety management);
- Intellectual Property (IP) (including trade mark portfolio management, exploitation of IP and protection and enforcement of IP rights (contentious and non-contentious website management));
- Dispute Management (including regulatory compliance, regulatory breaches, product liability, product recall and crisis management, passing off, breach of contract, consumer issues and guidance on regulatory approvals);
- Public Procurement, EU and Competition law;
- Employment law (including guidance on employee/contractor arrangements, share option and retention incentive programs and advising on Irish employment regulations and practice, including on health and safety);
- Data Protection / GDPR (including identifying and resolving compliance issues and implementing privacy and data protection policies);
- Property law (including the acquisition and disposal of properties and commercial leasing);
- Banking and finance (including bilateral, club and syndicated facilities to finance working capital, acquisitions, capital expenditure, receivables, commodities, export and trade); and
- Tax advice, tax compliance and transfer pricing (including M&A tax structuring, tax due diligence, R&D tax credit optimisation, corporate reorganisations, succession planning for privately owned groups and tax disputes).