“What I enjoy most is working with clients to solve practical problems – whether that’s managing risk in supply chains, navigating a regulatory issue in the utilities sector, or providing clarity on complex trade and commercial issues.”

Alison leads our Trade and Commerce team. A highly experienced commercial lawyer, she advises clients across all sectors on the full lifecycle of business-critical contracts and trade matters, both domestically and internationally.

By providing clear and commercially focused advice, she helps clients to navigate contractual complexity, manage risk, and achieve their strategic objectives in fast-evolving markets. Alison advises on all aspects of commercial contracting, including the drafting and negotiation of B2B and consumer agreements for the supply of goods and services, manufacturing and supply chain arrangements, IT and outsourcing contracts, cross-border distribution networks, and joint venture and collaboration agreements. Clients also ask her to help with ad hoc contractual issues and the development of internal contract management strategies.

A significant part of Alison’s practice involves supporting clients with international trade compliance. She has particularly strong expertise in export and import controls, sanctions regimes, and sector-specific regulatory obligations, and works closely with clients to manage trade and regulatory risks.

For clients in the clean energy and utility sectors, she applies her experience in structuring and negotiating a wide range of commercial agreements, including consultancy contracts, synthetic and physical power purchase agreements, private wire arrangements, operation and maintenance agreements, and aviation mitigation agreements.

Areas of practice include:

Sector experience includes:

Admitted

2010: Scotland
2019: Republic of Ireland
2019: England and Wales

Relevant experience

Commercial Contracts

Advising on various agreements for services, including an agreement for the provision of assurance assessments; benchmarking; and procurement support activities for the client’s clothing manufacturers across Asia, including social accountability, technical health and safety compliance and sourcing, procurement and production management.
Advising an investment bank in relation to the procurement of a new post-trade processing platform, including the negotiation and drafting of the new agreement, and strategic advice and assistance in relation to the expiry of the arrangements with their then-current provider.
Advising a FTSE 100 telecoms group on the drafting and negotiation of the documentation for an innovative and complex litigation funding arrangement, which was a landmark in the field of litigation finance.
Supporting an employability and education provider in relation to several matters including procurement of an artificially intelligent conversational assistant to provide natural conversational interactions with customers; and advice and assistance in relation to the transformation plan in respect of their outsourced IT service provider.
Advising on a Refuse Derived Fuel combined heat and power plant in central Scotland, including negotiation and drafting of an energy supply agreement and documentation relating to the joint venture structure for the project, security requirements and supply agreements with customers.
Advising a large energy company on various trading arrangements including a short term bridging PPA product (a new product for SP), GTMAs with various counterparties, and electronic settlement arrangements.
Advising a leading demand response business on trading services agreements to trade forward transactions to hedge requirements in relation to gas peaking plant to buy gas and sell power, as well as the contracts for the provision of operation and maintenance services to generation facilities.
Advising an airport operator on a new solar project which involved construction of an airside Solar PV farm with batteries, offtake/PPA between the airport operator and the generator and the installation of a new electric vehicle charging network.

International Trade

Advising a wealth manager on the application of Russian sanctions to its involvement with a Trust settled by a sanctioned person and its application to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) for a licence to proceed with a transaction to effect its exit from such arrangements.
Advising a technology company in relation to requirements for export licences and end-user controls for export of a product which contained a number of US manufactured components.
Advising a global aerospace, defence and information solutions company. in respect of the proposed import and sale of a new surveillance product, including providing advice in relation to the applicability of certain EU regulations regarding hazardous substances.
Advising a medical device manufacturer on various commercial arrangements, including standard terms and conditions of sale for medical equipment, and introducer agreements for a number of regions in Africa.