Business entities and transactions
Banking & Finance
Corporate & Commercial
M&A
Employment
IP, Innovation & Technology
Restructuring and Insolvency
Banking & Finance
We have a strong, highly active and comprehensive Banking and Finance practice, that consolidates expertise across all areas of the financial universe and the various segments within it. The department is known for delivering high quality output within challenging parameters, and is routinely entrusted to handle complex high-value transactions.
The team’s transactional focus areas include secured and syndicated lending, acquisition financing, real estate finance, and non-recourse lending (including project finance and PPP). Additionally, we routinely advise on regulatory compliance issues, financial product structuring, debt and equity capital markets issues, as well as financial restructurings, and related advisory projects.
The department benefits from its excellent interface with the firm’s other (including non-transactional) practices. This enables our teams to respond confidently to complex questions and provide workable responses to requirements touching upon controversial areas of law or involving other parameters of uncertainty.
Corporate & Commercial
The firm’s corporate and commercial practice is the foundation of our business-minded response to the varied requirements of clients from diverse industries and backgrounds. We have broad experience and expertise to address the wide range of questions that can challenge any organization operating in today's complex competitive environment.
The practice is responsible for providing general corporate advice and routinely deals with entity formation and maintenance, drafting and negotiating commercial contracts, joint ventures, cross-border transactions, corporate reorganizations, supply, manufacturing, distribution and transportation arrangements, imports and exports, insurance, corporate governance, designing and documenting intra-group procedures.
The team can act both as the client’s primary go-to external counsel hub, respond promptly to an ad hoc request or team up with other practice groups to deliver incidental input or assume responsibility for specific components of the firm’s overall service offering.
Alexiou - Kosmopoulos is accustomed to encountering situations requiring documentation or advice having a high level of complexity or novelty to suit the particular circumstances of the organisations involved or address transaction requirements. The firm’s attorneys gauge the business needs of clients and commercial risks involved, with a view to tailoring the firm’s approach to the relevant parameters, and delivering meaningful and value-adding advice.
M&A
The firm has experience representing companies in M&A matters in a variety of contexts, including mergers, business combinations, acquisitions, divestitures, carve-outs and joint ventures.
Corporations, financial institutions and private equity investors expect to realize value using M&A as a fundamental tool.
The firm's approach to M&A relies on the following defining principles:
- Pursuing a meaningful and truthful analysis of the businesses involved, the fundamental risks relevant to their particular circumstances, as well as process and execution risk;
- Deploying legal teams led by senior lawyers with relevant industry expertise to act within interdisciplinary teams;
- Focusing disclosure and negotiation on the issues having a key impact on the business and seeking to forge consensus of fundamental risk allocation; and
- Tailoring documentation to the risks, opportunities, incentives and value generation potential of relevance to the unique context of the transaction, and avoiding the disastrous comfort of "standard" contracts.
Employment
On employment, the firm is experienced representing employees and employers on contentious and non-contentious employment issues, both on an individual level and on a collective level, spanning the entire employment cycle.
Our employment practice is independent, yet closely streamlined with our corporate and commercial, and M&A, practices.
Routine representations undertaken by Alexiou - Kosmopoulos include:
- Producing and negotiating employment, management and ancillary contracts for all categories of staff, from the rank and file to CxO level executives, and key individuals on which an organization may rely;
- Advising on employment compensation, incentives, benefits, severance and payroll arrangements;
- Advising on the introduction and observance of company-wide or industry policies and procedures, as well as administrative reporting and regulatory filings;
- Providing counsel on matters pertaining to the preservation of the undertaking’s most valuable interests, including corporate protection, ethics and policy advice, in respect of matters such as competition, information protection, associate investments, anti-corruption and similar initiatives;
- Advising, and supporting clients through, business strategy implementation, including as part of combinations, restructuring, collective redundancies, outsourcing and secondment arrangements.
On contentious matters, our employment segment has had significant experience and success in both litigation and administrative employment proceedings and has handled matters pertaining to wrongful termination, employee misappropriation, corporate fraud, violation of non-compete and confidentiality covenants.
IP, Innovation & Technology
We have experience advising those involved in advancing the state of the art, those investing in the promise of innovation, as well as those requiring to access the benefits of technology for their business or commercial purposes.
All situations rely on the essential quest of determining "the right rights".
Technology start-ups, innovative ventures and creators of intellectual work product seek the optimal way to protect their inspiration, talent, effort and investment against the vulnerabilities inherent in a limitless, fiercely competitive global context.
Technology investors of all categories require IP due diligence to appraise the level of certainty or risk of a target IP portfolio and any early advantage consolidated by it.
Businesses selling, distributing or using the technology or other IP required to understand their precise position in the intangible rights food chain and obtain assurances that their intended activities will comply with applicable laws.
Alexiou - Kosmopoulos understands "the right rights" and has experience in advising, documenting and implementing IP due diligence and assurance strategies for all constituents of the intellectual breakthrough industries.
Restructuring and Insolvency
Our work advising on remedial or special situations at various pre- and post- insolvency scenarios focuses on maximum value extraction and realization of the client's objectives in the context of inter-creditor dynamics. Preservation of value depends highly on the timing of action, or inaction. By consequence, selecting appropriate proceedings or the suitable out-of-court process is equally important to designing a structure for transition and upside optimization.
The firm has long-standing experience advising lenders, shareholders and investors with successful individual and collective enforcement procedures, corporate recoveries, business and asset restructurings, and associated dispute resolution.
The Greek market currently offers an abundance of distressed and non-distressed opportunities likely to generate considerable returns. AKL is able to support different strategies to help achieve the objectives of different market players, including sellers and acquirers of portfolios or individual assets, opportunistic investors, holders of existing exposures, strategic or trade buyers and turnaround managers.
