Jonathan Emmanuel

I am a partner in the Commercial Group based in London. I assist clients with disruptive digital technology adoption including cloud computing, blockchain, agile software development and open source licensing.

I am experienced in commercial law matters advising suppliers and customers in negotiating large complex technology, outsourcing/sourcing projects and consultancy engagements. These can involve drafting and negotiating IT and business process outsourcing arrangements, managed services agreements, collaboration agreements, various technology contracts including SaaS agreements, software licensing/implementation (eg CRM and ERP implementations), maintenance, development and systems integration contracts.

Given that the firm is one of the world's leading technology law firms and my focus is on disruptive digital technology, I often find myself advising on cutting edge issues, from blockchain adoption to driverless car technology. I'm particularly interested in the fintech and autotech sectors, advising start-ups and global businesses.

One of the areas of my job that I find the most rewarding is developing strong relationships with people: it's important that our clients know, like and trust their lawyers. When I was a more junior lawyer I took the opportunity to get to know our clients by going on secondments in the accountancy, financial services and consultancy industries. This means I have experienced things from the client's perspective, and, as a result, I'm now regularly involved in managing client relationships and I understand the importance of advising on complex commercial and legal issues in a practical and no-nonsense way.

• Advising a global fintech company in connection with its strategic partnership with a blockchain software developer to create a blockchain platform for the syndicated loan market.
• Leading a team of lawyers advising a UK regional media group on the outsourcing of its end-to-end IT infrastructure. The deal was the first of its kind in the UK's regional newspaper industry.
• Advising a well-known IT systems integrator in a successful £700m deal to provide outsourced telecoms, IT infrastructure and end-user computing services to a major UK mobile network operator.
• Advising an international merchant bank on its decision to expand its retail banking network in the GCC, focusing on tech as a key differentiator. I advised on all aspects of this major transformation project, including dealing with the migration of the legacy wholesale banking infrastructure to a new tech platform.
• Advising an OEM in connection with a collaboration agreement with other OEMs and technology providers relating to the development of autonomous vehicle technology.