A retailer that signed a ten-year lease at Westfield before the pandemic, a production company whose biggest commission has just been cancelled, a restaurant on the Fulham Road whose landlord wants it out: business law in Hammersmith and Fulham is often about what a contract says when circumstances change. The borough's businesses are unusually varied for its size. White City holds media and science companies, Imperial spin-outs and the offices of multinationals; the Hammersmith flyover is lined with corporate head offices; Westfield and King Street hold retail and hospitality; Olympia hosts exhibitions; Shepherd's Bush Market and the Uxbridge Road hold hundreds of small traders; and three football clubs run supply chains of their own.
The start-up work at White City needs shareholder agreements, founder vesting, option schemes and investment rounds with SEIS and EIS relief; the production companies need commissioning agreements, co-production deals and advice on who owns a format; the retailers and restaurants need leases, premises licences, terms of business and, too often, help renegotiating with a landlord. Market traders deal with the council's street trading licences and pitch terms, and the many sole traders and small companies of the borough need the ordinary things: incorporation, contracts, data protection and debt recovery.
Disputes go first to negotiation or mediation, then to the county court or, for larger sums, the Business and Property Courts in the City. Insolvency advice, including directors' duties when a venue or shop can no longer pay, is part of the practice, and so is the procurement advice that the council's and the hospitals' suppliers now need under the Procurement Act 2023.
Fixed fees are usual for incorporations and standard documents; negotiations, investment rounds and litigation are hourly.
Business law firms serving Hammersmith and Fulham are listed below, verified first. Background reading: the explainers on business law, corporate law and debt and insolvency, plus the general business law solicitors page; staffing questions are for employment law solicitors in Hammersmith and Fulham.
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