Westminster & Partners / Expertise
Expertise
Legal advice for financial businesses, transactions and the commercial relationships that support growth.
Our work brings together five connected practices. The instruction may be an FCA application, a company acquisition, a financing or an important commercial agreement. It may also span several of these: buying a regulated business, for example, calls for corporate, regulatory and contractual work to follow the same timetable.
We begin with the decision you need to make and agree the documents, responsibilities and specialist input required to get there.
The rights, risks and responsibilities need to be considered at each stage of a transaction.
01 / Westminster & Partners
Financial Services Regulation
For financial businesses entering the market, changing their activities or ownership, and managing their regulatory relationship.
- FCA authorisation strategy, readiness reviews and application preparation.
- Regulatory perimeter and activities-and-permissions analysis.
- Variations of permission and changes to business models.
- Acquisitions and changes in control, including applicable section 178 work.
- Senior management, responsibility statements and governance documents.
- Principal and appointed-representative agreements and oversight provisions.
- Investment-business and fund-launch regulatory workstreams.
- Financial-promotion legal review, client terms and distribution arrangements.
- Outsourcing, supervisory correspondence and documented remediation.
02 / Westminster & Partners
Corporate & M&A
For buyers, sellers, founders, management teams and investors structuring a transaction or changing ownership.
- Share purchases, asset purchases, business sales and acquisitions.
- Heads of terms, confidentiality, exclusivity and transaction planning.
- Buyer due diligence, seller preparation and disclosure.
- Acquisition agreements, warranties, indemnities and liability allocation.
- Completion accounts, locked-box terms, deferred consideration and earn-outs.
- Minority and growth investment, subscription and shareholder agreements.
- Founder arrangements, joint ventures, governance and reorganisations.
- Signing, completion and coordination of regulatory and specialist workstreams.
Investment terms need to work alongside control, dilution and continuing shareholder rights.
03 / Westminster & Partners
Finance
For borrowers, lenders, businesses and shareholders negotiating or documenting a funding arrangement.
- Bilateral, private and shareholder loans.
- Facility terms, repayment, covenants and events of default.
- Guarantees and security within the agreed jurisdiction and scope.
- Conditions precedent, corporate approvals and funding checklists.
- Convertible instruments alongside their corporate and regulatory implications.
- Amendments, waivers, refinancing and releases.
- Coordination with transaction, accounting and tax advisers.
Facilities, shareholder loans and convertible instruments raise different questions about repayment, priority and ownership.
04 / Westminster & Partners
Commercial Contracts
For businesses negotiating with customers, suppliers, distributors and commercial partners.
- Master services agreements, statements of work and consultancy terms.
- Supply, procurement, distribution, agency and referral agreements.
- Service levels, acceptance, change control and responsibility allocation.
- Pricing, payment, liability, indemnities and insurance provisions.
- Intellectual property, confidentiality, subcontracting and exit terms.
- Founder and early-stage business contracting frameworks.
- Standard terms, negotiation playbooks and repeat-contract support.
Payment, delivery, liability and exit terms need to work together in a commercial agreement.
05 / Westminster & Partners
Technology, Data & AI
For technology businesses and organisations buying, building or deploying digital services.
- Software licensing, SaaS, development and implementation agreements.
- Cloud and technology procurement, service continuity and supplier exit.
- Data-processing and data-sharing agreements and transfer provisions.
- Privacy notices, privacy-by-design and DPIA legal support.
- AI procurement, acceptable-use rules and governance responsibilities.
- Training-data, input and output rights, confidentiality and IP allocation.
- Technology, data and AI issues in investment and acquisition due diligence.
Ownership of intellectual property and permitted data use can affect investment documents for a technology business.
06 / Westminster & Partners
Advice shaped around the matter
Launching a regulated business: define the regulatory route, prepare the application and align the corporate, customer and supplier documents.
Buying or selling a business: set the transaction structure, examine the risks, negotiate the agreements and coordinate signing and completion.
Raising or providing finance: connect the funding terms with shareholder rights, security, approvals and the practical conditions for funding.
Winning a customer or appointing a supplier: agree what must be delivered, what happens if circumstances change and how commercial risk is allocated.
Adopting technology or AI: establish contractual rights, permitted data use, management accountability and a workable exit route.
These are examples of how the practices can fit together, not statements about completed client matters.
07 / Westminster & Partners
A defined mandate
We agree the priorities, scope and responsibility for each workstream before substantive work begins. A mandate may cover one agreement, a defined advisory question or a coordinated transaction. Where tax, accounting, overseas law or other specialist expertise is needed, we identify that early and agree how it will be handled.
Our focus is advisory and transactional. We do not conduct litigation or provide court representation.