Maxwell Smith is a Senior Associate in the London office of our IP, Data and Technology practice.
He advises clients across a broad range of commercial, intellectual property, and data protection matters, with a particular focus on fintech, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence. Maxwell has extensive experience advising on strategic technology collaborations, complex outsourcing arrangements, licensing, joint ventures, and cross-border M&A transactions involving technology assets.
His practice spans multiple sectors, including financial services, technology, energy, automotive, and consumer industries, acting for clients such as London Stock Exchange Group, PayPal, Visa, ABB, Aston Martin, RELX, and Octopus Energy.
Prior to joining Freshfields, Maxwell worked in-house at a digital bank in London, and in the corporate department of leading New Zealand law firm Bell Gully.
Maxwell has advised:
- London Stock Exchange Group on its strategic technology collaboration with Microsoft for next-generation data, analytics, and cloud infrastructure solutions, involving a £2.3 billion cloud spend.
- ABB on the $5.4 billion sale of its robotics division to SoftBank.
- PayPal on the sale of up to $43 billion of its European buy now, pay later loan portfolio to KKR.
- Visa on its strategic investment in global payments technology business Form3.
- Salt Bank on its SaaS agreement with Engine by Starling for its core banking platform.
- RELX on the acquisition by LexisNexis of Henchman, a Belgium-based legal tech start-up.
- Aston Martin on its strategic supply agreement with Lucid Group, Inc. to develop ultra-luxury high performance battery electric vehicles.
- Octopus Energy on its acquisition of Shell's retail energy business in the UK and Germany.
- Kraken on its SaaS agreement with TalkTalk to provide its customer management platform.
- Wireless Logic, a leading global provider of IoT solutions, on its acquisition of Arqia, Brazil’s largest independent authorised MVNO.
- JD Sports on its €520 million acquisition of Courir, a leading retailer in the European sports footwear industry.
- A leading UK bank on the disposal of its insurance businesses in the UK and France.
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