David advises clients on executive incentive arrangements and employment law.
He is praised by clients for his thoughtful, calm and methodical approach to difficult legal issues. He regularly acts on some of the largest public M&A transactions in the UK market and is an expert on the impact of corporate activity on employees and share options. He has significant experience of advising on information and consultation obligations and the retention of key employees.
David acts for a large number of listed companies on their executive incentive arrangements and so is familiar with the intersection of legal issues, corporate governance, investor expectations and disclosure obligations. He also acts for large private equity houses on their management incentive arrangements.
In addition to his expertise in employee incentives, David also has an active contentious and investigative employment law practice. He regularly conducts external investigations into allegations of employee misconduct and advises on difficult disciplinary and grievance issues. In recent years he has also secured injunctions to restrain the breach of restrictive covenants by former employees; successfully defended claims for breach of contract in the High Court and Court of Appeal; and has defended discrimination claims in the Employment Tribunal.
David is ranked in Chambers as part of our Band 1 Employee Share Schemes and Incentives Practice and is an active member of the Share Plan Lawyers’ Corporate and Regulatory Committee.
He is an Ambassador to both the Freshfields Social Mobility Network and its Black Affinity Network, and a member of the firm’s LGBTQ+ network, Halo.
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- Long-term adviser to London Stock Exchange Group including on the employment and incentives aspects of its proposed $28bn merger with Deutsche Börse; its acquisition of Refinitiv; and its acquisition of Frank Russell Company and the related rights issue.
- Haleon plc on its demerger from GSK plc and its listing on the London Stock Exchange.
- Rentokil Initial plc on its acquisition of Terminix
- Comcast on the employee incentive aspects of its successful competitive bid of Sky plc, together with DWS on its takeover of Stagecoach plc; GXO on its takeover of Clipper Logistics plc; and CVC on its takeover of Stock Spirits plc.
- Google on its acquisition of Mandiant Inc.
- US based tech business, Carta, on its acquisitions of UK based fintechs Capdesk and Vauban.
- SSE plc on its the proposed spin-off and merger of its retail business with nPower and subsequent sale of SSE's retail business to Ovo Energy; and on its offshore wind energy joint ownership plan in Japan.
- Deloitte LLP in successfully defending a claim for breach of its partnership agreement in both the High Court and Court of Appeal.
- A global investment bank in defending a sex discrimination claim, which was struck out by the Employment Tribunal.
- An engineering company in the successful application for an interim injunction to restrain a former employee from breach his non-compete and subsequent resolution of the dispute.
- Various other employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal, discrimination and whistleblowing.
- Conducting investigations for various listed and private companies into allegations of bullying, harassment and discrimination.
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Education
- BPP Law School, UK (legal practice course, distinction)
- New College, University of Oxford, UK (BA in jurisprudence, first class)
Professional memberships
- Employment Lawyers’ Association
- SharePlan Lawyers
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