Negotiation & Settlement Counsel
Legal representation and strategic advice in negotiations, before and instead of formal proceedings
Most commercial disputes are resolved by agreement, not by award or judgment. The quality of that agreement is set at the negotiation table, and it depends on the same things a hearing would test: the strength of the legal position, the credibility of the alternatives, and the discipline of the strategy.
Marina acts for clients in negotiations where legal rights are at stake, drawing on 17+ years of resolving international commercial disputes and on advanced training in negotiation and business psychology. Clients engage her either to conduct negotiations on their behalf or to advise confidentially in the background while they stay at the table.
Core Practice Areas
Commercial and Contract Negotiations
Legal support in negotiating and renegotiating commercial relationships, with particular strength where cross-border elements, unequal bargaining power, or a deteriorating relationship raise the stakes.
Services include:
- Advice on where you stand before you negotiate: what your contract actually gives you, what you risk, and what that means for your strategy
- Negotiation of commercial terms in supply, service, and distribution relationships
- Renegotiation of contracts under changed circumstances, including price, scope, and termination discussions
- Renegotiation of commercial lease terms, including termination and arrears discussions
- Drafting and reviewing proposals, term sheets, and settlement-oriented correspondence
- Negotiations complicated by sanctions exposure or cross-border regulatory constraints
Shareholder and Partnership Disputes
Disagreements between business partners rarely improve with time. Marina advises and represents shareholders and partners when a partnership is under strain: deadlock, breach of arrangements, or an exit under conflict, in Canadian businesses and in cross-border ventures, including those with Central Asian, Caucasian, and Eastern European elements.
This is dispute work, the same ground as her arbitration practice in shareholder and joint venture disputes, addressed at the negotiation stage.
Services include:
- Negotiated resolution of shareholder, partnership, and joint venture disagreements
- Founder and startup partnership conflicts: co-founder fallouts, departure of a founder, disagreements over control and direction
- Exit negotiations where a dispute is live or looming
- Preparation of negotiation strategy where arbitration or litigation remains the alternative
Where a negotiated resolution requires transactional implementation (buyout documentation, corporate restructuring), Marina works alongside the client’s corporate counsel: she leads the strategy and the negotiation, corporate counsel papers the result.
Settlement of Disputes
When a dispute is live or imminent, Marina advises on settlement strategy and conducts settlement negotiations in the same categories of disputes she handles as counsel: complex commercial and contract disputes, shareholder and joint venture matters, and cross-border disputes, with particular strength in energy and natural resources, construction and infrastructure, and technology.
Her advice is informed by direct experience of what the alternative actually costs and how tribunals and courts assess the underlying positions.
Services include:
- Settlement strategy: assessment of legal merits, realistic outcomes, and the value of alternatives
- Conduct of settlement negotiations with counterparties and their counsel
- Structuring and documenting settlement agreements
- Settlement negotiations conducted in parallel with ongoing arbitration or litigation
- Negotiations backed by award or judgment enforcement leverage
Executive Exit and Severance Negotiations
Select representation of senior executives and professionals in exit negotiations, where the legal terms (notice, severance, releases, restrictive covenants, equity) and the negotiation itself have to be handled as one problem.
Services include:
- Advice on exit packages, releases, and restrictive covenants
- Negotiation of exit terms with the employer or its counsel
- Discreet background advice for executives who prefer to negotiate directly
- Cross-border exits involving multi-jurisdictional employment arrangements
Two Ways to Work
Counsel at the table
Marina conducts the negotiation on the client’s behalf, alone or alongside the client’s team.
Counsel behind the scenes
Some negotiations go better without visible lawyers.
Marina prepares the strategy, rehearses the difficult moments, reviews each exchange, and stays invisible to the other side.