Ian Bloom
Partner, Head of Corporate & Media Dept — Corporate, Employment, Media & Entertainment.
Specialist Areas
Ian Bloom specialises in corporate, media and employment law.
Corporate
Ian has handled a wide variety of company purchases, company sales and joint ventures, primarily in the UK but also overseas, including the purchase (and subsequent sale) of a tile manufacturing business; the sale of an engineering company; the sale of a television automation company with subsidiaries in three countries (apart from the UK); the purchase of a loudspeaker manufacturing company; the sale of a furniture manufacturing company; and the sale of a components distribution company. He acted in a $100 million international joint venture agreement between an Italian company and a Russian company for the construction of an overseas chemical plant and represented Robert Dyas Limited in connection with their share reorganisation and financial restructuring; Ian has negotiated various international alcohol distribution agreements with Seagram and Allied Domecq and advised in connection with the establishment of an overseas oil refinery. Ian has advised with regard to commercial agreements and business problems for over 20 years.
Employment
Ian regularly advises employers and employees on how to make a claim and how to resist a claim. He has drafted a range of employment agreements, service agreements, contracts of employment, consultancy agreements, compromise agreements and the like.
Media
Publishing
Prior to qualifying as a solicitor, Ian was a publisher and book reviewer. He has advised both publishing companies and writers on their book contracts and negotiated terms with various publishers for authors.
Libel
Ian has acted in the last 30 years for high profile media plaintiffs and claimants against a variety of publications and institutions including Private Eye; The Times; The Express Group; The Evening Standard; The Sunday Mirror; The News of the World; The Mail on Sunday; Time Out; Haymarket Publications; Lloyds Bank etc. He is retained by the “Ecologist” Magazine on libel and contempt issues.
Television
Ian has represented around 20 independent television production companies including Ecosse Films; Jeremy Isaacs Productions, McDougall Craig and One-Eyed Dog. Programmes have ranged from political series (“The Downing Street Years”) to a film biography of the cartoonist David Low to travel documentaries to art histories (with Billy Connelly) to guides to opera (with Harry Enfield) to Monty Don’s Channel Four daytime series “Don Roaming” and to G F Newman’s “Judge John Deed”. Ian sat in the television studios giving advice on programme content immediately prior to transmission for Carlton and has advised Channel Four.
Film
Ian has acted as the producer’s lawyer on various feature films and film projects since the mid 1980’s including “Prague”, “Almonds and Raisons”, “Venus Peter” and “Shallow Grave”. All of the films have been co-productions either with various British funders (BBC, Channel 4, British Screen) and/or overseas funders. Some have been set abroad and on occasion he has had to work abroad.
General
Ian frequently advises media individuals who appear mostly on television (but sometimes on radio) as presenters or who make programmes or who are senior executives in the industry on a wide range of contractual/personal matters. He represents Sir Peter Hall and others in the UK and The Denver Center for Performing Arts in connection with the exploitation of “Tantalus”, an epic series of 9 interlinked plays written by John Barton and performed in various theatres in the UK in 2001.
He also advises and helped Salisbury Cathedral when filmmakers want to use the Cathedral and the Close as a location; York Minster when scenes from “Elizabeth” were shot there; and St Alban’s Cathedral when “Johnny English” was filmed there on location.
Ian works closely with a leading London media agent.
Sport
Ian has drafted motor racing drivers’ contracts and dealt with rule infringement issues. He has advised footballers on contractual and other matters and also represents football managers and other sportsmen.
Intellectual Property
Ian regularly advises on copyright, trademark, intellectual property and passing off issues.
Career Details
Ian was articled at Beckman & Beckman where he later qualified as a solicitor and then became a Partner. Before joining Ross & Craig as a Partner, he was the Senior Partner at Bloom Camillin.
Specialist Memberships
- Employment Lawyers Association
- The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Email:
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7298 5221
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7724 6427
