Retail

The retail industry encompasses more than just one area of law. Your outside counsel should, too. Our cross-disciplinary team provides the experience, innovation, and flexibility you need to stay competitive and maximize your bottom line.

You need one firm to help you reduce risk, implement best practices, and enhance business operations, productivity, and profitability in your retail businesses. Our multidisciplinary team provides you with attorneys from a dozen distinct legal disciplines who know the retail industry inside and out.

Your intellectual property—your name, your product, your domain—is the lifeblood of your business. When your trademarks and patents need protecting, our intellectual property lawyers are on call to vigorously defend your property. And our cybersecurity team will prepare you for potential cyber attacks and data breaches and mitigate the damage should they occur.

Our finance and payments teams structure deals from conception to closing. From CMBS to co-branded cards, from letters of credit to B2B payments, Alston & Bird lawyers are the industry’s choice for hands-on, experienced counsel.

Regulatory burdens can cripple a company if they aren’t properly managed. We have award-winning teams that cover compensation and benefits, ERISA, and health care. Our environmental teams span the country, including California and that state’s particular jumble of agencies and regulations. And our D.C.-based legislative team can bring your concerns to the right people at the right time.

Should litigation become an issue, our lawyers are ready to go to trial on your behalf, always keeping your business goals at the forefront of any plan. We have defended some of the largest multidistrict class actions in the country. We have also quietly settled disagreements before they ever go to court.

Our tax team can tackle your knottiest issues from the ground up, whatever their size or shape. We have you covered at all levels – local, state, national, global. If you’re looking for guidance on local government tax breaks, unclaimed property, state and use taxes, legislative guidance, or cross-border deals, we have the information you need to thrive.

Whatever your legal needs, wherever you need them, our Retail Team has you covered.

Payments

Counseling retailers in the negotiation of electronic check and payment card merchant processing.
Advising retailers on regulatory and contractual issues in virtual currency retail acceptance.
Negotiating exclusive acceptance agreements and/or co-branded and private-label credit card program agreements.

Finance

Represented a worldwide retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies in connection with its $400 million asset-based revolver and its issuance of $750 million of senior notes.
Represented an electronics retailer in a syndicated senior secured lending facility.
Represented a financial institution, as agent and lender, in connection with a $250 million senior secured syndicated credit facility for a pharmacy chain.

Bankruptcy

Represented a national retail mattress chain in its winning bid to acquire 100 percent of the membership interests in an 80-store mattress chain in Virginia.
Represented a national retail mattress chain in connection with its DIP loan to, and acquisition of, a Chapter 11 debtor as part of a contested Section 363 sale process.
Represented a chain of furniture stores in the sale of its assets. The sale was completed and closed within three weeks of filing the case.

IP – Trademarks

Counseling a major retail organization, managing its docket of U.S. and international copyright and trademark disputes.
Counseling a variety of retailers with significant U.S. and international trademark portfolios and interests.
Privacy counsel to leading global brands in connection with the design and deployment of emerging technologies.

Litigation & Trial Practice

Co-lead class action defense counsel to the world’s largest and best-known home improvement retailer in multidistrict litigation in Atlanta following a widely publicized criminal cyber intrusion and data breach.
Defended hundreds of class actions in virtually every state in the country and across a variety of industries involving claims of fraud, breach of warranty, RICO, breach of contract, consumer protection, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and all varieties of state and federal statutory claims.
Representing retailers on advertising and marketing reputation management.

Corporate

Represented a convenience and grocery store company in its sale of 51 company-owned-and-operated convenience stores and gas stations located in the Northeast to a gasoline and convenience store management group.
Counsel to the world’s largest and best-known home improvement retailer in 10 public offerings of notes aggregating more than $21 billion.
Represented the leading distributor of beauty supplies in North America in four secondary offerings of common stock by one of the world’s leading private equity funds with proceeds of approximately $2 billion and five public debt offerings by the company for $2.6 billion.
Representing the world’s largest and best-known home improvement retailer in two shelf takedowns of notes aggregating more than $5 billion.

Real Estate

Counsel to one of the nation’s largest retailers in the disposition of surplus property.
Represents a Fortune 100 retailer in big-box development and leasing throughout the eastern U.S.
Represented a prominent national retail company in the development of agreements for construction of a waste-to-fuel facility.

IP Litigation

Patent litigation counsel to groups of retailers defending e-commerce or database system claims brought by formerly practicing or nonpracticing entities.
Represented a global retail company in a sophisticated cyberattack involving customized malware targeting payment card data from point-of-sale systems. The crisis response included coordinating the activities of multiple third parties, including state and federal regulators, payment card brand networks, federal law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Justice, as well as directing multiple third-party forensic firms in conducting a technical, forensic investigation.
Represented two of the world’s three largest retailers in all phases of data security and network intrusion incidents, including law enforcement, internal investigations, PCI and PFI investigations and card brand investigations, negotiations and remediation initiatives, and resulting litigation.

ERISA

Representing numerous companies in the design, implementation, and administration of all types of qualified retirement plans and deferred compensation arrangements, including advice on regulatory compliance with the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA.
Representing many companies in the voluntary correction of errors involving qualified retirement plans, including errors relating to tax qualification and ERISA fiduciary requirements.
Coordinated more than 50 IRS/DOL civil and criminal audits and investigations. Obtained favorable results, including, in many cases, the closure of audits without penalty or indictments.

Tax

Represented more than 50 national companies in multistate audits and/or voluntary disclosures of unclaimed and abandoned property.
Advising companies in structuring their gift certificate, gift card, and merchandise credit operations.
Providing planning and advice for the restructuring of companies’ gift card programs.