Charities, the NHS and institutions
A significant proportion of our client-base is universities, National Health Service Trusts, funding bodies and other organisations that have charitable status.
Our work for charities focuses mainly on contracts relating to technology transfer and research activities, but we have also been instructed on a wide range of legal issues that concern charities. Examples include:
- Closing down a charitable trust that provided accommodation to medical students at a university, and transferring the assets to the university. This project involved taking advice from counsel specialising in charity law and liaising with the Charity Commissioners, as well as drafting all relevant documentation.
- Advising a charity on corporate structures to put their 'trading' activities into a subsidiary company and thereby avoid prejudicing their charitable and tax exempt status.
- Advising a university on the terms of a major endowment, to ensure that it was a charitable gift and did not provide benefits to the donor.
