Our People

Expertise

John specialises in corporate law and has a broad corporate and commercial practice including advising upon domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, venture capital and private equity transactions, corporate reorganisations, fundraisings, corporate governance and commercial advisory work and commercial contracts, both for Irish and international clients. He also deals extensively with overseas clients and counsel on the establishment of business operations in Ireland both by acquisition and start-up. He has particular experience and expertise in transactions and advisory work in the insurance and financial services sector.

John previously worked with an international law firm in London. In 2000 and 2001 he headed up our New York office. John was based in our London office from late 2001 to 2005 (heading up the office from 2003 to 2005).

Experience

John has recently been involved in the following transactions:

• Acting for Aviva Europe with respect to a complex pan-European shared services arrangement involving the establishment of a European Economic Interest Grouping in Ireland
• Acted as Irish counsel to Thoma Bravo, LLC in relation to its acquisition of LANDesk Software, Inc
• Advising Montreux Equity Partners on an investment and joint venture in relation to Global Consolidated Aesthetics Limited
• Acting for a number of European conglomerates with respect to Court-sanctioned cross-border mergers into Ireland
• Acting for the Department of Finance with respect to due diligence on specific Irish financial institutions
• Acting for Life Technologies Inc with respect to the acquisition of Stokes Bio Limited
• Lead corporate partner acting for the Willis Group with respect to its corporate migration from Bermuda to Ireland
• Advised Park Group plc on its acquisition of the Celtic Hampers and Family Hampers businesses
• Acting for KBC on the sale of its Irish asset management business to Kleinwort Benson
• Acting for the shareholders of mTLD Top Level Domain Limited (Vodafone, Microsoft, Nokia, Google, Visa, Ericsson, Samsung, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and others) with respect to its sale to Afilias Limited
• Acting for the National Treasury Management Agency with respect to the recapitalisation of Bank of Ireland
• Acting for Blackrock Inc with respect to the restructuring of the EMPG Group
   
• Acting for Mastercard on the acquisition of Orbiscom Limited
• Acting for Wolters Kluwer on the acquisition of Ci-3 Consultancy Limited
• Acting for Reox Holdings plc on the sale of its consumer foods division to Kerry Group plc
• Lead partner for Wachovia Bank (now part of the Wells Fargo Group) on the establishment of its Irish operations
• Acting for Qualcomm Inc. on the acquisition of Xiam Technologies Limited
• Acting for Alchemy Partners in the acquisition of the A-Wear Group
• Acting for the management team in the MBO of Meridian VAT Reclaim Operations Limited from PRG-Schultz International Inc
• Acting for Texas Pacific Group in the Irish aspects of the acquisition of the Transfusion Therapies Business of Baxter
• Acting for Fyffes plc in the demerger of its General Produce and Distribution business into Total Produce plc and the consequent listing of Total Produce plc on the IEX and AIM markets
• Acting for Dairygold Co-operative Society Limited on the demerger and spin-off of its property and other non-core interests into Reox Holdings plc
• Acting for Broadbeam Corporation in its merger with Mobile Aware Limited
• Acting for Nvidia Inc in the acquisition of the assets of Pace Soft Silicon Ltd
• Acting for Stratos Global Corporation on the financing of the acquisition of Xantic