Whether your agriculture business is an established corporate or a growing new venture, its success depends upon expert legal advice to ensure resilience and the ability to maximise opportunities for growth in an ever-evolving legal and economic landscape. Thrings leads the market through one of the largest and most experienced teams of agricultural lawyers in the UK including highly-experienced corporate and commercial specialists with expertise in the full range of issues relating to farming, agriculture businesses and the rural economy.
In close collaboration with you, we will get to know your business and understand its long-term objectives as well as your immediate concerns.
We then build a team of specialists to meet the specific requirements and challenges of your unique agriculture business.
Clients benefit from our strong relationships in the industry and our ability to draw on knowledge across our firmwide teams in a wide range of specialisms including employment and HR, intellectual property law, banking and finance, wills and succession planning, and health and safety.
Our Team has been involved in a number of high-profile cases. Highlights include:
• Restructuring a family farming business involving a share buy-back to release cash for family member and consolidate ownership with key participants.
• Acting on the sale of a family feed merchant to a large consolidator in the agri-business industry.
Our expertise in this area encompasses:
Agri-Tech, looking to commercialise agricultural technology
Commercial contracts, including business contracts, supply chain contracts and outsourcing agreements
Property law, dealing with freehold and leasehold transactions
Corporate transactions and restructuring, including company sales, mergers and acquisitions, partnership agreements and joint venture agreements
Corporate or commercial disputes affecting agricultural businesses
Regulatory compliance, including food safety, food labelling, advertising, health and safety and product liability
Premises licensing
Specialist employment and HR advice for farming businesses – including contracts of employment, housing of agricultural workers, termination of employment, employee handbooks and workplace policies
Intellectual property law, including brand protection programmes, trade mark and registered design filings and intellectual property disputes
Competition law
We have strong ties to the following:
Acting as National Farmers Union panel solicitors for more counties than any other law firm in the country. We are also proud to be the sole designated legal contributor to the Farmers Weekly Business Clinic.
We are proud to have been chosen by the National Farmers Union to act for its members in more counties than any other legal firm and to be appointed by Farmers Weekly to provide legal advice to its members through its Business Clinic feature.
Seeking early advice before signing on the dotted line can protect you from potentially costly, lengthy and stressful legal disputes in the future. That’s why the NFU in conjunction with Thrings is delighted to offer a Contract Checking Service to NFU Farmer & Grower members. Thrings can undertake the work on your behalf by offering our independent professional advice to ensure you understand your rights and obligations and are satisfied that your aims and objectives are met before you sign a contract.
We offer a free NFU Legal Health Check and are also pleased to offer a 12.5% discount on our fees for qualifying cases for NFU members. Find out more about this, and other helpful information for farmers, on our Information for Farmers page. Read our five-minute Take Five Guide to your farm’s legal health check.
