Transactional Risk

Taft’s Transactional Risk Practice consists of a multi-disciplinary group of attorneys who assist buyers and underwriters on all transactional risk insurance products from quote through binding of the policy – and analyzing and resolving claims against these policies. We have advised on hundreds of policies representing tens of billions of dollars in enterprise value. The Transactional Risk Practice Group is industry agnostic and our experience covers a wide range of non-regulated and highly regulated industries drawing on our experience in virtually every subject matter area of expertise at the firm, including healthcare; U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations; FinTech; renewable and traditional energy generation and storage; securities brokers and investment advisors; franchising; real estate and real estate investment trusts (REITs); government contracting; and telecommunications. The Transactional Risk Practice Group includes attorneys with backgrounds in accounting and finance to offer a more integrated product to clients.

Underwriter Representation

Our underwriter-side representation includes advising clients on strategic matters, working hand-in-hand in addressing deal-specific risks in the underwriting process, and reviewing and addressing claims. Our practice is built to address the competing demands for speed and accuracy underwriters require to set themselves apart in an increasingly competitive industry. For this reason, we have carefully considered each step in the deal from engagement to binding in developing “turn-key” processes designed to ensure we provide consistent, centralized, concise & commercial advice, enabled by adoption of the latest legal software, and customized instances of modern collaboration tools and work-flow management software. Underwriters come to us for guidance on a number of products, including:

• Buyer- and seller-side representations and warranties insurance (RWI).
• RWI for carve-out and add-on transactions.
• Tax insurance policies, such as:
  • Investment tax credit deals (including hybrid RWI/tax products).
  • REIT transactions insurance.
  • Unusual and unique tax issues for which insurance is sought.
• Bespoke continent risk policies.

Buyer Representation

The depth and scale of our underwriter-side representation serves a synergistic role to our buyer-side representation. We regularly advise both strategic and private equity buyers to obtain transactional risk insurance that is appropriate in terms of coverage and protection and inform our buy-side mergers and acquisition team as to the latest trends in representations and warranties insurance. Our buyer-side claims practice also benefits from the relationships our underwriting team has with insurers to foster a more amicable and streamlined claims process.