Acting for a major national distributor of car motor parts, John Spratt received instructions just before Christmas to advise on his client’s acquisition of all the intellectual property rights in a name famous in the motor industry. The challenge here was that the Seller was a company based in the USA, and the agreement which the Seller required was to be governed by US law. A further problem was that the whole issue was extremely urgent. John reviewed the terms offered to his clients and advised on amendments and further protections, and negotiated this agreement successfully to a conclusion as a matter of urgency over the Christmas holiday.
John identified and instructed a firm of US lawyers to review his advice to make sure that there were no issues of US law which should be taken into account and which of course John would have been unaware of.
He recalls being on the telephone a great deal often at unsociable hours with his opposite number for the customer, and that finally they successfully completed the transaction after many long telephone calls interspersed between Christmas festivities! The whole transaction was completed in a matter of days.