PwC Legal Business Solutions

THE FIRM 

In a complex, fast-moving legal environment, it’s vital to get the expertise you need, when you need it. PwC’s Legal Business Solutions provides wide-ranging services to help you navigate the challenges you’re facing right now and prepare for the future. Driven by legal expertise, powered by insights, brought to life through technology and delivered globally – PwC creates results that make a difference.

OUR SERVICES 

The team at PwC offers an impressive understanding of cutting-edge issues acquired from years at the forefront of the legal sector. But that’s not all. Our legal experts form part of an integrated global multidisciplinary team that brings together lawyers, project managers, and finance and technology specialists, who utilise their industry-specific expertise to achieve outstanding results for clients.

Tighter budgets, increasing workloads and the need to protect your reputation are just some of the many challenges facing businesses today. PwC’s alternative business solutions teams can help you address the immediate issues swiftly and effectively. But we go further, enabling clients to transform the operating model of their legal functions and leverage the latest technology to digitise workflows, bringing greater efficiencies and significant savings, as well as freeing up senior executives to focus on higher value tasks.

PwC’s impressive on-the-ground experience of managing substantial business transformation projects ensures that risks and disruption are minimised. We strive to work collaboratively, applying proven methodologies to help evaluate your priorities and ensure that you find the right combination of solutions, first time.

KEY PRACTICE AREAS 

International Business Reorganisations (IBR): In a fast-changing global marketplace large organisations need to achieve structural and business flexibility. However, businesses undertaking any structural change must be alert to the legal risks involved. PwC's international structuring lawyers are skilled in managing these risks; designing multi-jurisdictional structuring plans and providing full implementation support for our client base of multinational FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies.

Intellectual Property (IP): Our experts are highly experienced at helping clients to protect, optimise and commercialise their intellectual property and other business assets. We assist companies of all sizes and across all sectors with their complex intellectual property and commercial needs, working closely with non-legal specialists and PwC's own extensive legal network around the world.

Data Protection: PwC provides business-critical support on data protection, privacy, confidentiality and security matters to businesses, governments and public authorities globally. Successful strategy development, execution and compliance monitoring require the blended skills of a multidisciplinary professional services team, which PwC is uniquely placed to provide.

Banking: The team advises on a wide variety of domestic and cross-border finance transactions, including real estate and development finance, leveraged and acquisition finance, corporate facilities and receivables finance. While we regularly handle traditional transactional banking matters for borrowers and lenders alike, we also provide advice on large-scale transactions such as LIBOR transition projects, complex solvent restructuring and the establishment of in-house banks and other lending vehicles.

Indirect Tax: Our indirect tax disputes lawyers are integrated into PwC’s indirect tax business, enabling us to offer clients a fully integrated tax disputes service covering all stages of a dispute from initial enquiry and investigation to final resolution, either by agreement or through the courts. With our in-depth knowledge of all aspects of indirect tax and VAT, and customs and excise we are often asked to conduct pre-litigation investigations for clients to identify potential disputes with HMRC, thereby offering a broader range of options than are available at the litigation stage and helping clients to make properly informed decisions. Clients also appreciate PwC’s depth of technical knowledge and experience of varied dispute resolution styles, including ADR or treaty resolution as well as tax litigation.

Direct Tax: PwC has a strong practice in handling direct tax disputes – concerning corporation tax, capital gains tax, VAT, environmental taxes, NIC – before the UK Tax Tribunals (First-tier and Upper), High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and the European Courts. We also handle dispute strategy planning, settlement negotiations and ADR as well as HRCP settlement negotiations, including enquiry management such as limitation of issues, tax authority information gathering and international matters. The team regularly coordinates simultaneous challenges to tax authority decisions across multiple jurisdictions, protecting our clients’ position to the fullest possible extent. We also coordinate investigations and enquiries involving numerous tax authorities, including cross-border information gathering and the use of tax treaty dispute resolution mechanisms.

Regulatory & Commercial: The team assists clients with regulatory compliance, corporate investigations and litigation. These matters typically involve allegations of bribery, corruption, fraud, money laundering, modern slavery and tax evasion, all of which carry enormous financial and reputational risks. With regulators and prosecutors increasingly willing to take action against businesses, it pays to have PwC’s leading experts in your corner.

Environmental Regulatory: PwC's leading team advises clients on all aspects of environmental and sustainability risk management and compliance, and can also help clients to optimise their day-to-day operations. Typical work includes permits, contamination issues and carbon regulation, corporate or property transactions/restructuring, supply chain ESG reporting and environmental disputes relating to contamination, nuisance or other issues. We work closely with specialist environmental tax and sustainability colleagues to provide commercial advice in a range of sectors – particularly the waste management sector, industrial manufacturing and services, and the retail and consumer markets.

Pensions: PwC provides business-focused advice to clients, working with pensions professionals from different disciplines to form a uniquely joined-up offering. This multidisciplinary approach means that our legal advice comes with a clear understanding of the wider, practical implications, identifying key commercial trends and examples of best practice from across the industry to inform our recommendations. As well as delivering tailored advice to pension scheme sponsors, trustees and pension providers on all aspects of pensions, PwC's market leading team regularly shares relevant trends with clients through e-bulletins, monthly newsletters and legal update sessions.

Employment: More than ever, employment law issues are receiving significant attention. Businesses must attract and retain top talent, adapting to changing employee expectations and engaging the workforce of the future. Understanding the rapidly developing employment law landscape and managing associated risks is a key part of this. PwC counts among our clients many household names and we have considerable experience of all key industry sectors. The multidisciplinary team includes specialists in tax, rewards, pensions, mobility, immigration, HR and incentives, allowing us to handle the most complex multi-faceted matters.

Entity Governance and Compliance (EGC): Recent regulatory change, both in the UK and globally, has focused attention on the importance to businesses of having robust compliance controls in place. PwC works with businesses to review, design and implement corporate governance structures that help them reduce liability, control costs and manage risks. We can provide integrated services that combine support for ‘business-as-usual’ activities on an annual, fixed fee basis with advice on discrete projects to, for example, address known risks and provide for ad hoc project and advisory support within a transparent pricing framework.

ESG: The world is on a fast trajectory towards a more sustainable future. This journey will lead to increased environmental and sustainability regulation across all sectors of the economy. PwC can help to identify and harness the opportunities arising from these changing environmental, social and governance regulations and ensure that your company is ready to achieve full compliance. We provide commercial, market focused advice to clients in a range of sectors, including manufacturing, oil and gas, energy and waste, and construction.

Financial Services – Corporate and Regulatory: PwC regularly advises on international business reorganisations in the banking, insurance, asset and wealth management, and fintech, payments and crypto sectors. This also includes support with M&A, investments and joint ventures. Using sophisticated legal techniques our skilled team is particularly adept at delivering cross-border projects in highly regulated sectors or where the assets and liabilities are unusually complex.

Financial Services – Alternative Investment Funds: Focusing on providing AIF managers and investors with fully integrated legal, regulatory and tax services, PwC’s experts work across all asset classes. We offer clients heavyweight experience, advising industry leading fund managers in the hedge fund, private equity and venture capital, real estate, infrastructure and credit fund space.

NewLaw: Combining PwC’s unique consulting methodology, data analytics and in-depth knowledge of the legal services market, our NewLaw team provides clients with a structured approach to creating value by identifying opportunities for enhancing effectiveness and saving time and costs. We can help you navigate this complex and dynamic market and determine the best lawtech strategy, dependi