Rebecca Howlett

Rebecca also has significant experience advising clients in the beauty and cosmetics sector and heads up Freeths’ specialist Beauty and Personal Care team. She has supported global cosmetics brands in establishing their products, building routes to market, assisting with the supply chain infrastructure, advising on retail and wholesale trading documents, drafting influencer agreements and supporting other key partnerships.

Rebecca has led the development and implementation of our “Virtual Legal Team” delivery service models for clients experiencing a high demand for commercial contracts support. Rebecca currently acts as “Virtual General Counsel” for a number of the firm’s clients, providing strategic advice to help identify current and future risks, and leads a team of commercial lawyers who act as an extension of the client’s in-house team under our Virtual Legal Team solution, advising on a range of business-critical contracts as well as developing supply chain documents and processes for the client.

Under the Virtual Legal Team arrangements, Rebecca and her team have drafted, reviewed, and negotiated various agreements on behalf of her clients, including key strategic arrangements with multi-million-pound values, whilst building strong rapport with the in-house teams that have been supported. Rebecca has also extensively advised on risk management issues in relation to major contracts where she acts as an integral part of the client team in an advisory capacity.

Advising clients in relation to the exploitation, use, protection, development and commercialisation of trademarks, patents, copyright, design rights, and other intellectual property rights.

Rebecca does this through registration, licensing, technology collaboration, joint venture deals and advising on intellectual property matters in business sales and acquisitions. She also assists clients with building national and international intellectual property strategies.

Recent Work

• Working with a defence company in relation to development and subsequent supply of a tailored product to a prime contractor in the defence sector. This involved insuring that the background intellectual property rights of the client remained at all times with the client and did not pass to the prime. Rebecca negotiated the position in relation to the intellectual property rights in the developed product and the royalties to be paid.
• Working with a pharmaceutical company in relation to distribution of a product internationally. The client had assigned rights in relation to its core intellectual property that prevented its own distribution in certain markets. Terminating agreement with the distributor and negotiating the assignment back to the pharmaceutical client.
• Advising a manufacturer and service provider of fire safety equipment. This was in relation to core intellectual property rights, rights in developed materials, negotiating intellectual property assignments and drafting development and manufacturing agreements.
• Advising an award-winning London brewery in relation to its plans for global expansion. Rebecca assisted with the identification of key markets to target and the approach to be made in each individual market. She ensured that core intellectual property rights remained protected, providing portfolio management services and assisting with supply agreements with major supermarket retailers.
• Acting for a French multi-national defence and security company in relation to its contractual requirements in England.
• Advising a global luxury skincare client on key intellectual property contracts. This involved negotiating the assignment of fundamental intellectual property rights which had been created by a consultant, in order to ensure a sale of the company was able to take place, and drafting celebrity endorsement.
• Acting for an award-winning London brewery in relation to intellectual property, distribution and supply agreements. This included foreign trade mark registrations, logistics agreements and advising on distribution agreements with supermarkets and agents.
• Representing a client in relation to a documentary for Film 4 and negotiating heads of terms for the filming and production of the documentary.
• Drafting agreements for a publishing house in relation to biographies and other works, together with distribution agreements relating to the exploitation of those works.
• Drafting terms and conditions for an annual conference for a professional body with attendance from in excess of 7,000 delegates annually. The 2018 conference will be the largest conference in Europe in the sector.
• Acting for an innovative and rapidly expanding manufacturing company, in relation to protection of patents and other intellectual property rights and licensing these, together with granting worldwide distribution rights.
• Assisting a growing medical company with a review of all its contracts with third parties and its intellectual property rights in order to prepare the company for a future sale. Perfecting the title of all intellectual property rights and renegotiating unfavourable terms in contracts to drive up the value of the business.