The UK has initiated the official EU withdrawal process on March 29th 2017. Since then, a substantial array of our clients that operate into and out of the UK, struggle with the legal uncertainty caused by this process. The transactions are often intended to include continuing obligations lasting over the course of several years and thus would be subject to any and all decisions the representatives from both sides of the canal render.

Not without good reason our clients asked us: How can we protect ourselves against adverse circumstances arising in connection with Brexit?

It was clear to us that any contract would need a so-called “Brexit clause”, which is nothing more than a contractual provision which triggers some change in rights/obligations as a result of a defined Brexit-related event. The clause therefore needs to set out the specific Brexit related event triggering the clause and the contractual consequences of that event. Such clause would have to be negotiated and agreed upon additionally to the already commonly known “material adverse change”- and “force majeure”- clauses.

Since we’re part of a multi-national network of highly skilled and prestigious law firms and it is our standard practice to always custom-tailor solutions for our clients, we were able to easily advise and offer solutions in each and every case, by inter alia establishing open communication channels in a fast, efficient and reliable manner. These channels allowed the people involved to define and agree on trigger events which are sufficiently specific for the respective contract and also stipulate the according consequences. 

The respective clauses were drafted, negotiated and agreed upon in a relatively short period of time. Since a boilerplate-trigger such as “when the UK ceases to be a member of the European Union” creates uncertainty by itself and potentially leads to a loss in valuable exchange of goods/services or even costly litigation, our clients will benefit from our developed wording substantially once Brexit “happens”.