Creating a joint venture that keeps all parties satisfied
- A joint venture can help you launch new products and expand into new markets.
- Your legal advisor should research your partner, alert you to potential risks and draft an effective agreement.
- Our knowledge and experience will ensure you have a suitable partner, the most appropriate legal structure and effective protection for your interests.
- If you are in a joint venture that’s failing, we can help terminate it whilst minimising the impact on you.
What is a joint venture?
A joint venture is a business arrangement in which two or more companies come together to share resources and expertise to achieve a common goal. Joint ventures can be established for a specific project or for a set period of time.
What is a joint venture agreement?
A joint venture agreement is a legal document that outlines the terms and conditions of a joint venture between two or more parties. It specifies the roles and responsibilities of each party, the sharing of profits and losses, and the decision-making processes.
How Moore Barlow can help
A joint venture can help you make your innovative business idea a reality, access new markets and resources, increase capacity and share risks. It can be highly flexible, lasting long-term or just for the life of a specific project. Yet it can also have several traps for the unwary.
If you’re considering a joint venture, you need to choose your partner carefully. Whilst you’re looking for fresh input, you need their approach to complement yours. You need to have the same objectives, closely-matched management and business cultures, and clearly defined commitments to the joint venture. Otherwise the relationship and the venture itself can quickly fail.
There are various types of joint venture and it’s important you have expert legal advice on what’s appropriate for you. Drawing on our experience, we will tell you the best legal structure for your circumstances; for example, a business partnership, setting up a separate joint venture business or a simpler limited co-operation agreement.
We can also guide you through the due diligence checks needed when choosing a partner and how to protect your own business interests, such as intellectual property rights. When you ask us to draft an agreement, we’ll ensure it covers all the aspects required, such as:
- the structure and objectives of the venture
- the business plan and how it will be funded
- management, marketing and sales responsibilities
- the capital and assets you’re committing to the venture,
- confidentiality agreements and ownership of intellectual property
- how profits and losses will be shared,
- how disputes should be resolved
- how the venture should be terminated.
All of these aspects must be considered, yet sometimes details are overlooked in the initial enthusiasm for the venture. Our attention to detail means you can have confidence in your agreement and in your venture’s prospects for success.
If you’re already part of a joint venture and things have gone wrong, we can help find a resolution with the minimum of fuss and disruption.
With our expert staff based across our offices in London, Southampton, Richmond, Woking, Lymington and Guildford, we’re ideally placed to offer the legal support you need on a local, national and international level.
