Matias expounds on his teardown of the Y Combinator SAFE Agreements, discussing why this document is important and some of the common practices to watch out for.
The primary goal of the cannabis Safe is to address the regulatory complexities that come with raising money in the industry. For example, depending on whether a company is raising a priced round (i.e., selling equity at a fixed valuation) or a convertible security round (i.e., a Safe or convertible note), each triggers different regulatory reporting and/or approval processes.
The role of lawyers in a transaction ranges not only from document drafting and reviewing but also to negotiating. In fact, from my perspective, drafting and reviewing documents are the basic skills that each and every lawyer must be well-equipped with while negotiation technique is what defines an outstanding lawyer.
Whenever a transcontinental commercial opportunity or a business operation is expected to take place, one of the core challenges to face from the legal counselling standpoint relies on the need to match the parties’ legal frameworks into one single agreement. This task is usually taken to the next level when the parties’ law families differ from each other. That is, when Common Law and Civil Law frameworks are to convene.
If you’re like most lawyers, you love your smartphone. Some might even call it romantic love. We bring our smartphones everywhere. According to the latest stats, most lawyers probably spend more time looking at their smartphones than they do talking to their friends.
Legal services are too often a black box. You don’t know what your lawyer is doing. The lawyer doesn’t know enough about what you need. A few phone calls here, a few drafts there, and a few weeks later you have a mediocre work product, a fatty hourly bill, and you learned nothing to arm your team for the future.
Contract drafting is a mixture of art and skill. Effective contract drafting is concise, precise, and unambiguous. Instead of the persuasiveness of a legal brief, contract drafting is a matter-of-fact memorialization of the parties’ understandings.
I filed a claim against a large company for not paying for the custom work my client had completed for them. Although there isn’t a one-size-fits-all description for this position, the General Counsel of a GCC company can expect to wear multiple hats as the owners of the company can tend to hold a very diversified investment portfolio.
Silence may be louder and say more to people than you’d think. As lawyers, we care deeply about justice, and as business lawyers, we know that you have to weigh the costs and benefits.
The Israeli legal system, like many of its counterparts around the globe, is struggling to wrap its head around the legal implications of the COVID-19 crisis.
This article discusses these various options from a retail landlord and retail tenant perspective, with apologies to those who can’t get the following tunes “out of their head.”
The one thing that we can all be certain about right now, regardless of beliefs or political affiliation, is that we live in a time of great uncertainty.
When drafting, reviewing, or revising Fees provisions, it is important to note that courts interpret the clause narrowly given that the American Rule is preferred.
NDAs can be as different as snowflakes because the needs and goals of each party will change over time and the way the IP will be transferred, licensed, and utilized changes depending on your intended business endeavor. But, at least initially, it does not matter if you are presenting a business idea, trying to sell your company, reviewing third-party vendors or considering R&D partnerships, the discussions surrounding an NDA should always begin with the same series of questions.
Can I terminate this contract? Did I “freely negotiate” all the terms of the contract? These are the questions commercial actors are facing amid the spread of Covid-19.
Think of the SAFE as a convertible note with the event of default, interest, and maturity date provisions stripped out. They come in several forms, with the primary differences between them being interest and maturity.
When an employee leaves a company, they usually take with them proprietary secrets and other insider knowledge. In order to protect the business, many employers have their soon-to-be former worker sign a confidential separation agreement. These allow both parties to move forward with a shared understanding of what constitutes privileged information. They also clarify other important parting business, such as what the company considers to be non-competition and what constitutes a fair severance package.