Ed CookeManaging Partner

Ed is an international lawyer, a commercial advisor  and a skilled negotiator. His career started as a construction lawyer, and he has vast experience of helping clients to finance, procure, and deliver real estate developments and infrastructure for transport, energy and telecoms.

He is a recognised expert in critical Technology Infrastructure (data centres, fibre, “Smart Cities” and the like) and in this sector he also advises on an array of commercial arrangements including funding arrangements, customer contracts, SLAs, technology contracts and other contractual provisions.

He  has previously been a partner in international law firms DLA Piper and Bird & Bird, enabling client teams to deliver some of the biggest and most challenging projects.

Ed has worked on construction projects involving different types of assets: ranging from luxury hotels, high-end retail stores  and residential developments through to energy and transport projects, and healthcare provision. Ed has also worked on a significant number of technical engineering projects, including road, rail upgrade projects, wind turbines, solar power projects  and data centres.

Career Highlights

• Mission critical design and construction agreements (mission critical projects, where the financial, human, reputational, or other consequences of a facility failure or a delay in completion would be significant. Ed believes that you cannot work out the risks a contract needs to manage without understanding the underlying technology and construction methods).
• Acting for the Olympic Delivery Authority on their £9.4bn programme including: procurement of master plan design for Olympic Park, procurement of design and construction of Zaha Hadid designed Aquatics Centre, procurement of other sports venues such as basketball arena, hockey, BMX, water polo; and procurement of International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre (IBC/ MPC).
• Acting for Agility Trains in respect of their contracts for the £12bn Intercity Express Programme for the upgrade of rolling stock and infrastructure on the East Coast Mainline and Great Western Railways.
• Data centre co-location agreements (negotiating co-location and related agreements with customers). Agreements typically include service level requirements for power, cooling, humidity, connectivity, security, and other requirements.