Overview
With in-depth knowledge of the intricate legal issues facing professional athletes, teams, leagues, agencies, and other sports-related businesses, our lawyers can leverage their industry knowledge and connections to protect our clients’ interests and help them achieve their goals within the unique legal landscape of professional and amateur sports.
Key Decision-makers
Through our years of working in the sports world, we have developed an extensive network of contacts and relationships with key decision-makers across organisations.
This gives us unique insights and access that allow us to better advocate for our clients’ interests.
We leverage our industry knowledge and connections to protect our clients’ interests and help them achieve their goals, whether securing a deal with third parties, defending against a lawsuit, or navigating complex league rules and regulations.
Our extensive experience in this area in various jurisdictions allows us to provide informed and practical legal advice on a wide variety of issues and assist our clients in making the right commercial decisions.
Widely Recognised
Haldanes is widely recognised for its work in this area, with awards and representation on industry bodies within Asia and internationally.
Our lawyers represent clients ranging from agents of up-and-coming race car drivers to prominent figures in the sports marketing industry.
Our experienced lawyers stay up-to-date with the cutting edge changes in sports law and provide comprehensive legal services to clients across the sports industry.
Representation across the Sport Spectrum
We represent professional athletes, tournaments, agents, and other sports-related organisations in a wide range of matters.
These include negotiation and drafting of promotion agreements, broadcast rights agreements, endorsement agreements, sponsorship agreements, representation agreements, and life rights agreements.
We can also advise on structuring events, formation of various corporate entities, tax-related issues, and handling the registration of trademarks and other intellectual property rights.
Where necessary, we can assist with contentious issues within sports law, including copyright infringement, contractual issues, and more specialised matters that may require reference to the Copyright Tribunal in Hong Kong.
Our Services
Haldanes offers a comprehensive range of services to meet client needs including:
- Contract negotiations and drafting.
- Endorsement and sponsorship agreements.
- Intellectual property protection.
- Regulatory compliance.
- Dispute resolution.
- Tax planning and filing.
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- Representative Experience
- Provided expert guidance to the promoter of a highly-publicised celebrity influencer boxing tournament. This ground-breaking event garnered an impressive total of 4.7 million views on YouTube and 106.9 million views on Instagram and Twitter, boasting a combined following of 210 million followers. Our role involved advising the client on all aspects of the tournament, ensuring legal compliance.
- Advised an operator of a popular and iconic hotel resort in Asia. Our assistance extended to reviewing a 5-year marketing sponsorship and event hosting and organization agreement, which focused on promoting a widely popular sporting event in the region.
- We provided comprehensive advice to the agent and manager of a promising race car driver competing in the F1 Academy Series. Our engagement included the drafting and negotiation of various crucial agreements on behalf of our client. This encompassed a driver agreement, a commercial rights agreement with a top racing company, and a life rights agreement for the production of a documentary on the racer’s inspiring life story.
- Advised and assisted a prominent figure in the sports marketing industry, leveraging our extensive experience in various transactions, including but not limited to offering strategic advice on pre/post-acquisition restructuring of business entities. Notably, the value of the commercial rights managed by our client’s company exceeded an impressive US$3 billion.
- Assisted a digital media company in reviewing and advising on various agreements for the provision of an online live sports streaming service to a betting agency.
- Acted for various agencies in acquiring broadcast and online commercial rights for the Asia region, including rights to the English Premier League, National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL) and International Cricket Council (ICC).
- Advised a family office upon the acquisition of a minority stake in a football club in the English Premier League, including due diligence exercise and negotiation and drafting of deal terms with the senior management of the club.
- Represented the promoter of a professional cricket tournament. Our role included drafting and negotiating a promotion agreement with a government body, venture agreements, sponsorship agreements, team agreements and handling visa issues for players and support staff.
- Engaged by a regional sports training centre to provide expert advice and conduct a workshop on sponsorship agreements targeting their athletes.
