Telecommunications

Salans’ team of telecommunications specialists has experience across all spheres of the telecommunications sector. Our understanding of the often-conflicting objectives of operators, regulators, and financial equity and debt investors enables us to provide legal advice that makes sound business sense, whether advising on regulatory issues, corporate finance, competition law, dispute resolution, VSATs, or undersea cable systems.

Our Approach

Many of our lawyers formerly worked as in-house counsel for telecommunications companies and can now use their first-hand expertise of the sector for our clients. We act as counsel for major American, European, Russian, and Asian telecommunications operators, service providers, new market entrants and financial investors and institutions.

Our lawyers prepare licence applications for public network and telecommunications services and negotiate financings and telecommunications services supply agreements on behalf of clients. We are also experienced in reviewing bilateral interconnection agreements and advising on the provision of voice telephony by internet.

We involve our cross-practice lawyers from our technology, corporate, financing, intellectual property, tax, and dispute resolution teams to ensure we treat all legal aspects of a matter expertly and efficiently, while  remaining cost-effective.

Our Services

We provide the following services to our clients in the Telecommunications sector:

Corporate Structuring

Corporate structuring is often critical to establishing telecommunications investments, which frequently involve joint ventures between local and foreign companies. Local regulations may dictate limitations on the foreign ownership of telecoms operators, and local laws frequently affect an operator's equity and debt structure. An efficient corporate structure must take advantage of opportunities to reduce the tax applied to returns of foreign partners. Our lawyers seek to maximise long-term shareholder value by helping our clients understand the practical legal risks involved in any project.

Dispute Resolution

As one of the cornerstones of the firm, our dispute resolution capabilities to the telecommunications sector are extensive. We have represented our telecommunications clients before numerous arbitration tribunals and courts in many countries. Whenever possible, we actively promote settlement and mediation as an alternative or complement to arbitration and court litigation. When positions cannot be reconciled, our lawyers provide vigorous and effective representation.

Financing

As telecommunications projects involve substantial investments, financing is frequently a key element of our work. Our lawyers are skilled in providing advice on initial and subsequent equity financing rounds as well as on debt and corporate financing and, when necessary, restructuring. Salans’ international nature, combined with our expertise in local jurisdictions, places us in an excellent position to find solutions to telecommunications financing issues.

Regulatory and Industry Contracts

We make regulatory filings, including licence applications, for our clients. We are involved in drafting and negotiating specialised industry agreements such as for network supply, capacity, VPNs and VSATs. We have also successfully negotiated many global outsourcing contracts.