Software and platform development

We specialise in representing developers, suppliers and customers in the information technology sector. We work with the full lifecycle of businesses from enterprise-grade organisations through to fast-growing scale-ups.

Our sector expertise falls into three areas central to software and platform development: commercial relationships, regulatory obligations and intellectual property licensing and infringement.

Commercial relationships

We advise our clients on the full spectrum of software and platform development commercial arrangements from drafting standard terms to resolving early stage disputes.

We have significant experience helping software and platform development clients to understand the core risks in their business models and develop standard terms and conditions to protect against those risks. We draft standard terms from scratch and we update existing standard terms in need of a refresh in light of new regulatory developments or updated business models.

Much of our work relates to the negotiation of commercial relationships during the initial contracting and renewal phases of our clients’ large or strategic deals. We take time to understand our clients’ specific business models and related risks, focus on core issues and maintain good working relationships with counterparties.

In particular, we have experience negotiating SaaS / PaaS / IaaS agreements, large or strategic business process outsourcing agreements and master services or support and maintenance agreements.

We regularly assist our clients with understanding their legal position as set out in their customer or supplier agreements when a new dispute first emerges. Most disputes can be settled commercially, without the need to incur the time and expense of prolonged legal wrangling. We help our clients quickly understand their legal position and leverage that knowledge in discussions with commercial counterparties to develop agreed solutions.

We are always happy to turn our hand to a new challenge and to use our sector expertise to adapt to new models and support our clients’ growth.

Regulatory obligations

We advise software and platform development businesses on their regulatory compliance obligations in respect of data protection regulation and emerging artificial intelligence regulations.

We perform audits across our clients’ businesses in relation data flows and personal data protection compliance and regulatory compliance, following up with any necessary commercial renegotiations or corporate restructuring activity.

Intellectual property licensing

We support our clients to ensure that their intellectual property is properly protected, licensed and monitored and we provide in-depth audits of IP licensing flows from suppliers and developers through to end clients to ensure full compliance with licensing requirements across our clients’ business models.