The sheds along the A19 at the International Advanced Manufacturing Park look alike from the road, but each is a separate company with its own supply contract, lease, workforce and bank facility, and all of them depend on the plant next door. Business law solicitors in Sunderland spend much of their time on the paperwork that holds the cluster together: supply agreements with demanding delivery and quality terms, tooling ownership, the contracts that follow when a tier-one supplier subcontracts to a tier-two, and the lease on a unit built for a single customer.
Away from automotive, Sunderland's businesses are smaller and more varied. The seafront at Roker and Seaburn has filled with cafés, bars and restaurants that need premises licences, leases and staff contracts; the software firms around the university need shareholder agreements and terms of business; the port, the remaining engineering works on the Wear and the logistics companies at Washington need commercial contracts and property advice; and the new offices at Riverside Sunderland, on the old brewery site, are bringing professional firms into the city centre. Family businesses, from builders to taxi firms, need partnership agreements and succession plans, and sooner or later a sale.
Disputes over unpaid invoices, broken contracts and bad leases are issued in the county court in Sunderland; larger claims go to the Business and Property Courts in Newcastle. Most settle after a solicitor's letter or a mediation. When a supplier fails, as happens in every downturn in the car industry, the same firms advise on insolvency, directors' duties and recovering what is owed.
Standard company work is fixed-fee; negotiations and disputes are charged by the hour with an estimate for each stage.
The business firms around Sunderland are listed below, verified ones first. Read what business law covers, dispute resolution and debt and bankruptcy, see the general business law solicitors page, and for staff matters employment law solicitors in Sunderland.
