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July 5, 2017Clifford Chance advises Imagination Technologies, as the UK chip designer puts itself up for sale in the midst of a dispute with Apple.
The team advising the Hertfordshire-based business is being led out of London by M&A partner Lee Coney, with support from M&A partner Katherine Moir, intellectual property partner Vanessa Marsland, litigation partner Iain Roxborough and competition partners Jenine Hulsmann and Timothy Cornell.
Imagination is involved in a dispute with its largest customer, Apple. The dispute concerns licensing payments. In April, the US computer giant planned to stop using Imagination’s chip designs – which help power the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch
However, Imagination questioned whether Apple could produce its own chip designs without breaching their patents.
In May, Imagination announced it had initiated a dispute resolution procedure with Apple over licensing payments.
Prior to confirmation of the sale process, Imagination had put two of its three core businesses up for sale to mitigate the potential loss of Apple as its key customer.
Clifford Chance has previously won a mandate to advice the Co-operative Bank as the bank kicked off the process to find a buyer. Coney is also leading the magic circle firm’s team on this sale following the mandate in February. This is alongside capital markets partner Iain Hunter, banking and finance partner Simon Gleeson and corporate partner Hilary Evenett.
On 19 June, the Co-op Bank, as an update on the sale process said it was “in advanced discussions with a group of existing investors with a view to a prospective equity capital raise and liability management exercise”.
