John Leonida Of Clyde & Co On The Nature Of Superyacht Law

“The superyacht law space, and I’ve been doing this for the best part of 20 years, when I first started doing this it was an amateur vocation. There wasn’t anything you could describe as superyacht law.

“It was something that you did in addition to shipping, there wasn’t a specialism so to speak. But in the 20 odd years I’ve been doing this, it’s gone from gentleman amateurs to being a very precise and specific practice of law with it’s own cases, with it’s own body of law, with it’s own contracts and with it’s own regulations.

Clyde & Co have brought the days of the gentleman amateur to a definitive and tangible sector dedicated to superyacht law. The team of exponentially growing lawyers and partners specialise in the entire superyacht design, construction and on-the-water career of any luxury yacht.

The necessity of in-depth knowledge is infallible, and John Leonida explains the processes which attract the most attention from superyacht owners.

“The first thing that everyone says to me when they pick up the phone, tax. Tax is front and centre every single time. What they want it to be and what it actually is, two different things. Intellectual property is, again, a huge area I get consulted upon but the primary area is contract law whether it’s building or buying a yacht.”

For more information on the superyacht law process, necessity and history, watch the full video with John Leonida of Clyde & Co above.