Services
Commercial Law
Senior commercial lawyers helping GCs, commercial counsel and heads of legal handle the supplier, customer, licensing and partner agreements the business actually depends on, without the work overwhelming the function.
Clear advice, commercially grounded
When you instruct Arbor Law on a commercial matter, you work directly with senior commercial lawyers who have done this work at scale before, many of whom have served as GC, commercial counsel or head of legal inside the business. We will read the position quickly, set out the options in plain English, and run the negotiation, the drafting or the review in whatever shape suits your function.
The arrangement is simple: you stay in control of the commercial decisions, and we get on with the work.
What you get when you instruct Arbor on a commercial matter
A senior commercial lawyer on the file from day one
Every Arbor commercial lawyer has negotiated complex commercial agreements at City or international firms before joining us, and many have served as GC, commercial counsel or head of legal inside the business too. The lawyer you brief is the lawyer doing the work, with recent experience across procurement, licensing, JV and trading work for businesses of your shape and sector. So when you describe the commercial pressures behind the agreement, we tend to recognise them, because most of us have sat on the other side of the desk on the same kind of contract.
Contracts that work the day after the deal closes
Commercial contracts need to do more than look defensible on paper: they have to support delivery, allocate risk in proportion to what is actually at stake, and give the operational teams a framework they can use without re-reading it every quarter. We focus on agreements that are clear, workable and aligned to how the business actually runs, because that is what the function comes back to when the relationship gets tested.
A joined-up view across commercial, data, IP, procurement and disputes
Commercial matters routinely connect with data protection, intellectual property, procurement, outsourcing, disputes and sector regulation, and a contract negotiated in isolation from those adjacencies tends to be the contract that creates the next problem. We work across the overlaps in-house, bringing in the right colleague when it matters, so the agreement you sign holds together across the wider legal and commercial picture rather than splitting at the seams six months in.
Sector context already on the page
Arbor Law advises across technology, telecoms, media, fintech, banking, energy and infrastructure, so when you describe the commercial backdrop to a contract negotiation we tend to recognise it. The risk appetite of a Series B fintech is not the risk appetite of a listed bank, and the supply-chain pressures on an infrastructure project are not the supply-chain pressures on a media business: we know the difference because we have advised both. That context shapes how we draft, how we negotiate and where we hold the line.
City-grade judgement at the right price point for your matter
Arbor Law was built to let you partner with senior, City-trained lawyers without the leverage and overhead of a traditional firm: which matters in commercial work, where the volume of agreements running through a function makes external costs hard to forecast. Our model gives you reliable access to senior judgement, priced in proportion to the agreement in front of you rather than the size of the team behind it.
A working pattern that fits your commercial team
We sit alongside your in-house commercial team rather than around it: we work in the format and the cadence that suits you, and act as an extension of your function rather than another supplier to manage. Where you want us to lead a negotiation end-to-end, we do that. Where you want your commercial counsel or your contracts lead to run the front of the deal and use us for senior input on the points that need it we do that too. The aim is the same either way: to take friction out of how legal works with procurement, sales and operations, not add another layer to it.
Commercial work, run well, looks different from one engagement to the next, but the underlying disciplines tend to be the same: senior eyes on the file early, an honest read of where the existing precedent already does its job and where it does not, and a steady hand when the negotiation gets harder than expected, whether that is a difficult counterparty, a regulatory wrinkle or an internal stakeholder who joins the discussion late.
Most in-house commercial functions arrive with a clear sense of one or two pressure points, the renewal calendar, the framework that has stopped fitting the business, agreement negotiations that are dragging, and a less clear sense of the others. A fair amount of the value lies in mapping the picture honestly before recommending changes: where the existing playbook is sound, we say so and leave it alone; where it is creaking, we set out what to fix, in what order, and what the cost of leaving it would look like in commercial, operational and reputational terms.
When the work is in-flight, whether a high-stakes negotiation, a strategic JV, a licensing roll-out or a portfolio of supplier renewals, we run it the way an experienced GC or commercial counsel would want it run: senior-led, calibrated to the commercial picture, and focused on protecting the position you are negotiating from. If the case for a particular position ever shifts during the negotiation, we will say so and recommend the alternative: that is the conversation an experienced commercial counsel tends to want, and it is one we are comfortable having.
When you instruct Arbor on a commercial matter, you can expect a senior-led view on the position quickly, a clear plan of what we are doing and why, and a single named lawyer accountable for the matter from start to finish.
Our commercial services to help businesses thrive
We advise across the full spectrum of day-to-day and strategic commercial arrangements, helping you manage risk, support delivery and create stronger foundations for growth.
Procurement and outsourcing
We help you structure and negotiate procurement and outsourcing arrangements, see our procurement offering here for more information.
Franchising and distribution agreements
When you are expanding into new markets or refining an existing route to market, we help you put the legal framework in place that supports the commercial objective and protects the brand as the model scales.
We advise on the structuring, drafting and negotiation of franchising and distribution agreements, helping you navigate the regulatory requirements and reach arrangements that are clear, workable and aligned with the way your model actually operates.
Marketing and advertising agreements
We help you put marketing and advertising arrangements in place that support the commercial ambition while keeping the legal, regulatory and brand-safety issues under control: drafting and negotiating agreements that protect the brand, support the market position and give you confidence in the way campaigns, partnerships and promotional activity are structured.
Manufacturing and trading agreements
We advise on manufacturing and trading agreements that give you a clearer operational framework, sharper risk allocation and a contractual basis for continuity as the business grows: contracts that reflect how goods and services are actually produced, supplied and traded, not the abstraction of how they are supposed to be.
Whether the priority is quality control, supply-chain resilience or the management of delivery risk, we help you put contracts in place that the operational team can use without re-reading the schedule every quarter.
Framework services agreements
Where the commercial relationship is ongoing and multi-layered, a properly structured framework agreement can take a lot of the recurring friction out of delivery from the outset.
We help you structure and negotiate framework services agreements so that the key terms are settled early, expectations are easier to manage, and the relationship can run with less friction over time, especially as new work is called off under the same umbrella.
Joint venture agreements
When businesses come together in a joint venture, the outcome usually turns on how clearly governance, commercial objectives and risk are aligned from the start, and how honestly the partners have addressed the points where their interests diverge before the ink dries.
We work with you to develop balanced joint venture agreements that support stable working relationships, clearer decision-making and a stronger platform for the long-term success of the venture, with the deadlock and exit mechanics that any sensible joint venture needs from day one.
Licensing agreements
We draft, review and negotiate intellectual property licence agreements that protect the underlying rights while letting the business exploit them commercially on terms that make sense: clear scope, defensible royalty mechanics, and exit rights that work if the relationship needs to end.
The focus is on enforceable arrangements that reflect your wider IP strategy and give you confidence the terms support both exploitation and control, in the markets and use cases that matter to you.
Terms and conditions
We help you put B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) terms in place that give the function a more reliable contractual foundation: clearer trading relationships, consistency across customers and channels, and fewer avoidable risks turning into avoidable disputes.
Well-structured terms and conditions give your teams a more dependable contractual base, whether the priority is managing exposure, improving transparency or supporting growth across a larger customer base.
Get in touch today
If a commercial agreement is on your desk, the sooner the right lawyer sees it the better. Send us a short note about what you are negotiating and one of us will come back to you personally, often the same day, to talk it through. The first conversation is on us, and if we are not the right firm for the job we will tell you and, where we can, point you to someone who is.
- +44 (0)20 7355 0540
- info@arbor.law
- 20 North Audley Street, London W1K 6WE
