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Stephen Sidkin

Partner

Stephen is a founder partner of Fox Williams. From the earliest days of the firm, he has advised clients on commercial law, specialising in commercial agreements, intellectual property licensing, franchising and competition law. Stephen has been publicly recognised as a leading authority on distributorship and agency law, and, in particular, the Commercial Agents Regulations. This led him to establish Fox Williams' agentlaw team and the development of www.agentlaw.co.uk, a Fox Williams' website dedicated to agency and distribution law. He is head of the Commerce & Technology Department of Fox Williams.

Stephen is involved in advising many of Fox Willams' fashion clients on their agency, supply and licensing arrangements. Stephen drove forward the creation of www.fashionlaw.co.uk and now leads the Fashion Law Group.  Recently he was a member of the team which advised the Superdry brand owner, SuperGroup PLC, in connection with its institutional and retail share offerings which resulted in SuperGroup listing on the London Stock Exchange.

A specialist area of Stephen's franchising practice concerns the international franchise established by a number of leading independent schools including Dulwich College, North London Collegiate School and Wellington College.  Stephen chairs the Fox Williams School Franchise Group.

Stephen has written and spoken widely on agency and distributorship agreements, in particular, and commercial law issues, in general. The last few months have seen articles written by Stephen published in Womenswear Buyer and Cabinet Maker among other publications. He is also co-author of the UK chapter of Kluwer's Commercial Agency and Distributorship Agreements (3rd edition).

He is a regular commentator on radio and television where his appearances include Watchdog (going head to head with Anne Robinson), GMTV, Newsroom South-East,  and BBC Radio 5. He has also appeared on many programmes made by Legal Television Network. In addition he keeps in touch with King's College, London from where he graduated with an honours degree in Law before obtaining his Masters in business law.

Stephen has served for many years on the Commercial Law Committee of the City of London Law Society. He was its Chairman from 1995 to 1999 and is currently again its Deputy Chairman. In addition, since 2007 he has been President of the Contract Law Commission of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA). At the 46th Congress in Sydney in 2002 he spoke on the topics of protecting brands in international sale of goods and the law of distribution contracts. This was followed by the 2003 Congress in Lisbon at which he spoke on pre-contract negotiations. At the 48th Congress in Geneva, Stephen spoke on intellectual property licensing agreements.

Prior to joining the UIA he was a long standing member of Association Internationale des Jeunes Avocats and spoke at many of its congresses.

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