Our dedicated MMS Food & Drink team provides first class legal advice to ensure that our clients are well placed to deal with important legal issues, such as brand awareness and protection, managing business risks and opportunities and meeting the ever increasing range of compliance and legal regulations.
The team contains specialists from across our range of practice areas and from each of our four UK offices. Our on the ground presence in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Aberdeen coupled with our membership of the global Lex Mundi organisation ensures that we can advise on any legal issue, irrespective of where it may arise.
For more information, please view the sections below or contact Alison Bryce or Mark Hamilton.
We have extensive experience of providing advice on a range of commercial agreements for our Food & Drink clients with particular expertise in terms and conditions, supply, processing and distribution arrangements and e-commerce/website compliance.
MMS advises a number of businesses operating in the Food & Drink industry, ranging from blue chip organisations to SMEs. Our experience includes advising management teams on company formation, raising capital, shareholders' agreements and the preparation and execution of stock market listings.
We are leaders in providing sound, commercial and practical advice on company and business acquisitions/sales of all sizes. We regularly work in conjunction with our Tax team advising our Food & Drink clients on share schemes, incentivising key executives, tax planning for corporate or property acquisitions and disposals as well as tax efficient reorganisations.
The Food & Drink industry is one of the largest employers in UK manufacturing, directly employing over 410,000 of the UK's 29 million strong workforce and a further 1.2 million jobs being dependent on the sector through the retail or catering industries.
Our experienced Employment team is on hand to deal with any staffing issues that you may encounter, including the effective handling of disciplinary matters and grievances, performance management, ensuring compliance with national minimum wage and working time legislation, the rights of agency workers, employment of migrant workers and advice on permissions to work, preventing discrimination, complaints of bullying or harassment and dealing with leave requests.
The Food & Drink industry, which accounted for £11.5 billion of exports in 2008, is heavily affected by EU regulation. Our dedicated EU, Competition & Regulatory team has advised clients in relation to labelling, advertising, health and nutrition regulations, product standard and safety rules, international distribution issues and European rules on free movement of goods.
Competition law is increasingly being felt in the industry too, with investigations and large fines across a wide range of Food & Drink products and activities. Our dedicated team is recognised as a leader in the competition law field. We also have experience in dealing with merger control in the sector.
Good brand protection and customer reputation can be critical to those involved in the Food & Drink industry. We can provide strategic advice on how best to protect your brand and how to use it to generate revenue whether by licensing, collaboration or supply arrangements.
Licensing of intellectual property rights (such as trademarks, copyright in labeling, know how in recipes etc) will often be a key part of any distribution and supply arrangements and it is important to ensure that the brand is used in a manner which is legal, consistent and maintains customer loyalty.
Innovation is vital to the future or continued success of a business and is key to our Food & Drink clients who are constantly striving for future profitable growth by developing business efficiencies. Our IP & Technology team is on hand to assist with the full range of issues that arise in this area including advising on patenting, CT systems, drafting collaborations and research and development agreements.
Our Liquor Licensing team has significant experience in advising corporate and commercial clients in relation to liquor licensing, including the recent implementation of the new licensing regime in Scotland. We provide a full range of services from portfolio management and advisory work to advocacy. We have an experienced team of specialist lawyers who are able to represent clients before Licensing Authorities and appeal bodies in relation to the grant, review, revocation, transfer and renewal of licences and statutory prosecutions arising from breaches of liquor licensing legislation. Our Property team works closely with our licensing specialists to deal with sales and tenancies of licensed premises and transfers of liquor licenses and applications for new licenses.
For more information, please contact Ewan Easton.
Finding the right property can be a challenge. We are able to deal with all types of property legal work. This can range from advice on routine matters arising from ownership or tenancy of premises to party specific transactional work.
Our dedicated MMS Food & Drink Team provides first class legal advice to ensure that our clients are well placed to deal with important legal issues, such as brand awareness and protection, managing business risks and opportunities and meeting the ever increasing range of compliance and legal regulations.
The team contains specialists from across our range of practice areas and from each of our four UK offices. Our on the ground presence in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Aberdeen coupled with our membership of the global Lex Mundi organisation ensures that we can advise on any legal issue, irrespective of where it may arise.
Our clients in the Food & Drink sector include:
