Sakil is described by the Legal 500 UK as being “a highly technically able lawyer, with broad-ranging experience and commercial focus.” He is “technically very able and easy to talk to, and gets to the crux of the matter quickly.”
Sakil is a partner in the firm’s Global Corporate Group, with over 25 years of experience at the firm. In that time, he has built up a strong practice handling general corporate and commercial matters. Sakil acts for a broad range of clients across a number of industry sectors, who value his technical expertise and commercial approach to issues, including major listed corporations, growth companies, and start-ups. He has a wealth of expertise in cross-border transactions involving the United States, South and East Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, and emerging European countries.
Sakil handles mergers & acquisitions, VC, and private equity transactions, and advises on general company law. Sakil also has strong experience in restructuring and distressed deals, working closely with our insolvency group. He heads up the firm’s Company Secretarial function and has significant experience in company law and partnership law. Sakil has strong experience in real estate transactions covering SPV sales and purchases, and also advising on investment structures and related property management, hotels and leisure, HMAs, and operator agreements.
On the commercial side, he has developed specialist skills in a broad range of commercial agreements, including joint ventures and strategic alliances, and large multi-jurisdictional service, technology, and outsourcing transactions; manufacture, supply, procurement, logistics, and warehousing; and advising on day-to-day matters such as standard terms and conditions, advertising, marketing, and consumer laws. He also has strong experience in technology, e-commerce, and data and privacy, including software development, licensing, mobile apps, AI, SaaS, and cloud computing.
Sakil is one of the leading partners in the firm’s Retail and Consumer Goods Group, with a deep knowledge of the sector. As part of his commercial practice, Sakil has a particular focus on franchising, distribution, and agency law. He is a member of the International Distribution Institute (IDI) and serves as their UK Country Expert. He has a wealth of experience advising on all aspects of marketing and sales structures, licensing arrangements, and white labelling, including new agreements and advising on restructurings and terminations. He is an expert on agency law and the Commercial Agency Regulations, with strong experience coordinating advice on a multi-jurisdictional basis.
Sakil has gained invaluable commercial exposure working in-house, having spent time on secondment with the legal departments of international corporations Sara Lee and AkzoNobel, where he advised on general commercial matters, including supply, manufacture, distribution, and agency agreements; standard terms and conditions; competition law; consumer law; advertising, marketing, and sales promotions; data privacy; IT/e-commerce and internet trading; and intellectual property development, protection, and licensing, including confidentiality, research and development, and collaboration.
Sakil also serves as part of the Diversity and Inclusion leadership team in the UK, and is a member of the firm’s Responsible Business Committee.
