Our US Practice

Hill Hofstetter LLP is a modern, no nonsense, internationally-focused leading law firm. We fight hard for our clients’ interests and are truly results-driven. We specialise in high end, complex and difficult cases, and have many years’ experience representing US corporations and their UK subsidiaries in litigation/arbitration, corporate, regulatory, financial services, labor and real estate matters.

We take a practical and commercial approach to law. We aim to highlight and minimise risks, develop integrated strategies together with our clients, and solve problems quickly and pragmatically. We will do what it takes to get you the result you want.

We know the US market. Many of our lawyers were partners in the global US firm Reed Smith before establishing this firm. We have worked with all kinds of US corporations. We understand their approach is different to corporations here and in continental Europe. In turn, we are far from the standard stereotypical British firm.

Legal costs often scare clients. We are aware of that and sympathise. You will find us very cost effective particularly compared with our London competitors. We have low overheads, small and nimble legal teams, and are totally open with how we charge for the work we do. We can bill in dollars and we are not impacted by any eurozone issues.

We are based in first class full facility accommodation close to London and right next to Birmingham International Airport. We can also meet and work with clients in facilities in the City of London itself. Or we can meet you on one of our regular trips to the US.

The following examples highlight the quality and range of our work for US corporations:-

Litigation:

• Currently defending a US pharmaceuticals company in respect of claims against it for alleged defects in one of its leading drugs, including managing substantial e-discovery and interfacing with comparable US litigation proceedings.
• Successfully defending a large US multi-national and its insurers against multi-party claims for industrial disease that, if successful, could lead to a multi-million pound liability.
• Representing a US rail engineering business in a project dispute with a Korean rail company involving international arbitration provisions under LCIA rules.
• Advising a US new media company on a copyright dispute with UK collecting societies, and the management of its UK rights, and liaising with its advisers in other member states.

Corporate:

• Representing a global food and household products company on cross-border M&A transactions involving businesses and companies in the UK, Europe and Asia, and on setting up manufacturing joint ventures in Turkey and Sri Lanka.
• Advising a US IT multinational on acquisition of the share capital of a company specialising in virtual cloud technology with operations in England, France, Germany and the Czech and the acquisition of a UK entity specialising in encryption technology.
• Representing a US logistics company on the purchase of two distressed UK businesses, including advising on UK insolvency rules and on the UK’s “TUPE” rules in relation to proposed restructuring.

Regulatory:

• Representing a US pharmaceutical company in respect of UK and European aspects of a US FCPA investigation into unlawful payments to European healthcare professionals, involving document review and analysis and interviewing of witnesses in England, France and Poland.
• Advising a US healthcare diagnostics company in respect of suspected breaches of European public procurement regulations by public authorities following the award of tenders to competitors. This involved project managing lawyers in other jurisdictions such as Romania and Spain.
• Running a multi-jurisdictional project for a US IT company on the data protection implications of launching e-mail archiving software across 16 European countries, managing all the in-country legal advisers.

Labor & Employment:

• Advising a major US information technology client the introduction of new terms of employment and bonus and commission schemes in various countries in Europe including the UK, including project managing the advice from other European jurisdictions.
• Advising a global corporation head-quartered in the USA on how to exit senior employees based in the UK and to negotiate severance agreements preventing possible potential litigation in the UK or the US.
• Advising and assisting a US corporation to acquire a UK business and thereafter reorganising the UK business which involved redundancies, changes to terms and conditions of employment and exiting senior directors.

Real Estate:

• Advising a US real estate investment trust on a number of projects where they are the joint venture partner, ranging from property management to major development projects, including a Biomedical Campus in the East of England.
• Representing a US corporation in the complex disposal of a brownfield site in the north of England, involving advice on key environmental issues.
• Representing an American healthcare provider which won one of the first UK Government contracts to construct a diagnostic treatment centre under the UK’s PPP/PFI scheme. The work included construction, zoning and a complicated funding structure.

Key Contacts

Peter Seary

Jonathan Hofstetter

Tim Foster

Ranjit Dhindsa

For a complete list of our lawyers, please click here: http://www.hillhofstetter.com/our-people/.