City firms prepare to advise clients on the implications of ‘Brexit’
updated on 02 February 2016
Top City firms have been preparing to advise their clients on the consequences of the United Kingdom’s potential exit from the European Union.
Most business lobby groups broadly favour the United Kingdom staying in the European Union, but companies are making contingency plans ahead of the in-out referendum which will decide the issue. Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have all said that they have assembled teams to advise on the implications of a Brexit for tax, employment, financial regulation, intellectual property and company law.
Simon Gleeson, a financial regulation partner at Clifford Chance, commented: “You know people are starting to take something seriously when they start spending money on it, and we’re starting to see that. We’ve been running around giving presentations on the potential of Brexit, but only in the last month or so are people starting to say, hang on, this is a real problem we need to pay attention to.”
