SM&B is one of the leading specialist firms advising the film and television industries.

We deal with all aspects of film and television production, finance, broadcasting and distribution, having an enviable client base consisting of some of the UK's leading production companies, financiers, distributors, broadcasters, and, of course, the talent itself.

We have for example advised on some of the most high profile films produced by the British film industry over the last few years, details of which are set out on the News section of this website.

Our leading film and television industry specialists are Simon Goldberg, Razwana Akram, Jonathan Cameron, Nicholas Lom and James Greenslade. All of our film and television specialists are individually recommended in the Legal 500 2009 edition and SM&B is recommended in the Chambers 2010 edition.

In addition to the specific agreements described in our legal services pages, we also of course provide specialised advice on copyright and other intellectual property matters for example solving chain of title issues and undertaking chain of title investigations for financiers and distributors.

As a firm, we also provide all related corporate advice so that clients are offered all available alternatives for structuring transactions. This can be very important given the tax driven nature of many of these structures particularly in the film industry. These may include for example setting up EIS vehicles or limited liability partnership structures or more generally acquiring catalogues or content through acquisitions of companies or businesses.  We also advise on setting up joint venture vehicles between companies or as a way of incentivising executives.  Similarly we help clients to comply with all corporate and financial services legislation when raising production funding.

Furthermore, we also advise broadcasters and distributors on the IT and software licences, support agreements and other arrangements that are usually required when exploiting content online and/or introducing new systems to improve the management and efficiency of their business operation.  This is in addition to help with the more general contractual, regulatory and e-commerce issues which arise when selling products online.

 

 

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