OUR SERVICES
Mergers and Acquisitions
Investment Rounds
SEIS and EIS Tax Reliefs
Shareholder Agreements and Articles of Association
Shareholder Disputes and Buyouts
Joint Ventures
Founder and Vesting Contracts
Share Option Schemes
Employee and Consultancy Agreements
Technology and Intellectual Property Contracts
Strategic Company Law Advice
Financial Services
Commercial Property
Last updated on October 15th, 2021 at 11:23 am
Welcome to
‘The Jonathan Lea Network’
We are a firm of solicitors based in Haywards Heath, Mid-Sussex. We work with clients throughout the UK and around the world, adopting a tailored, pragmatic and clear approach to each matter we take on.
Put simply, through our work we aim to increase your profit, protection and free time. We only accept instructions on matters where we know we can add value and will always ensure that clients have the benefit of fee certainty, including a commitment to fixed fees where possible.
How To Negotiate University Spin Outs
Published 4 days ago
Investment in UK university spin outs reached £1.11b in 2020, which is a significant increase from the £577m raised in 2011. Although the number of deals has decreased since its peak in 2017, university spin outs remain a popular and important method for UK universities to commercialise their knowledge and research.
This blog outlines some of the key aspects that founders should consider when negotiating university spin outs with the universities themselves.
The potential pitfalls of referring to employee share option plans in employment offers and contracts and how to do so safely
Published 72 days ago
What are employee share option plans and why would you implement them?
Employee share options provide employees with rights to acquire shares in a company (usually the employing company or a member of the same group) at a pre-agreed fixed price (often called the exercise price or strike price) in the future. Normally, the exercise price is the market value of the shares at the time the option is granted.
For example, an employee could be granted an option to buy 100 shares at a price of £1.00 per share.
Disclosure In Litigation: What You Need To Know
Published 91 days ago
What is Disclosure?
Disclosure is a provision of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (“CPR”), a term given to the process of offering documents within your control and are material to the issues in dispute. The purpose of disclosure is to make available evidence that can either support or undermine the respective parties’ cases.
Our Top 5 Recommendations For EMI Share Option Schemes
Published 147 days ago
Top 5 Tips for EMI Options
1) Separate generic scheme rules (that apply to everyone, e.g. when options lapse on leaving the company before options vested) and then bespoke option certificates that include details specific to each option holder such as exercise conditions (for example every year of employment or with reference to company turnover target or individual metrics such as sales targets).
What are unapproved / non-tax advantaged share option schemes and how are they used?
Published 154 days ago
An unapproved share option scheme (which is now increasingly referred to as a non-tax advantaged share option scheme) provides the right, but not obligation to acquire a given number of shares from a company at a future date for a fixed price.
For the purposes of this article, we will continue to refer to these schemes as “unapproved” schemes because this is how many people still refer to them. Many industrial professionals, however, have adopted the term “non-tax advantaged” in place of “unapproved”.
