Our hospitality lawyers draw upon more than 50 years of dedicated industry experience to provide counsel to many of the world’s largest hotel brands and management companies, as well as some of the most successful hospitality investors and REITs.
Venable’s hospitality clients rely on our comprehensive real estate, transactional, franchise, regulatory, labor, litigation, tax, advertising, and intellectual property capabilities. We regularly represent our clients on all aspects of real estate development, financing, and construction. We also have extensive experience with structuring and negotiating all types of hospitality-focused commercial agreements involving management agreements, online distribution, hospitality service agreements, IP licensing and outsourcing, and brand protection.
Our hospitality lawyers have represented individual hospitality companies and industry groups on every major legislative and regulatory issue affecting the industry for more than 25 years. We understand that exceptional regulatory representation extends to data privacy and security matters, where our proactive approach helps to ensure the protection of the sensitive information of our clients and their customers. We provide advice on a wide range of advertising and marketing matters, including brand protection, regulatory compliance, multimedia promotions, and global trademark portfolios.
Venable’s recognized Labor and Litigation practices provide our hospitality clients with practical, effective advice on labor and employment matters, dispute resolution, litigation, and government investigations.
We also assist our hospitality clients with negotiating and implementing contractual agreements that affect day-to-day operations, and with structuring compliant employee benefits, health, and welfare plans that support company objectives.
Management Agreements
Our hospitality attorneys advise both hotel brands and management companies on structuring and negotiating hotel and other hospitality management agreements, and on restructuring ownership/management relationships.
Distributions, Agreements, and Outsourcing Transactions
Our attorneys regularly advise and negotiate online distribution agreements, IP licensing agreements, technology outsourcing arrangements, and brand protection for our hospitality clients. We also advise our clients on investments and partnerships with a focus on emerging technologies and platforms affecting the hospitality industry.
Food Service Facilities
We advise leading companies in the food service sector in connection with their restaurant facilities at airports and other transportation hubs, including corporate and joint venture structuring and negotiation with restaurant partners; brand licensing transactions; real estate leasing work with airports, aviation authorities, and other municipal organizations; procurement, vendor, IP licensing, and technology transactions with third parties; and commercial disputes.
Real Estate
We provide counsel to our hospitality clients in all areas related to the development, financing, and construction of new hotel projects. Our attorneys also work on the acquisition of operating hotels scheduled for rebranding, the negotiation of joint venture agreements, and the purchase and sale of hotels.
Franchising and Licensing
We serve as franchisee counsel for hospitality clients and provide advice on relicensing, renewals, and termination of franchises in connection with acquisitions, restructurings, or refinancing of existing hotels and hotel portfolios, and the development of new hotel properties.
Advertising, Marketing, and Brand Protection
We regularly partner with iconic hospitality brands to review advertising, marketing, and promotional campaigns, manage global trademark portfolios, and bring enforcement actions in various forums, including federal court, the Patent and Trademark Office, and self-regulatory groups. We provide advice on complex promotions and customer loyalty programs, including telemarketing compliance, loyalty program restructuring, challenges to competitors’ advertising, and government investigations.
Data Privacy
Venable’s nationally recognized Privacy Group addresses compliance counseling (including GDPR compliance), defense against investigations, response to data breach incidents, and cross-border data transfer for our hospitality clients.
Tax
We provide important advocacy at all levels of government on a full range of tax issues that affect our hospitality clients. Venable tax attorneys also provide federal, state, local, and international tax advice to hospitality companies on a wide range of business transactions and structuring of assets and business lines.
Litigation
Venable’s litigation attorneys advise our hospitality clients on commercial matters, labor and employment, construction defects, advertising and unfair competition, class actions, and intellectual property disputes. We handle internal and government investigations, both in the courts and in arbitration and mediation.
Labor and Employment
Our hospitality clients rely on Venable’s labor attorneys for advice and representation on a wide range of labor issues, such as collective bargaining, defending against unfair labor practice charges, and challenging adverse labor decisions before the NLRB and federal courts. Our employment attorneys provide pragmatic counsel to our hospitality clients in the context of an inherently dynamic employment law landscape.
Benefits
Our benefits attorneys work closely with our hospitality clients on identifying, structuring, and implementing compliant employee benefit plans. We counsel plan sponsors and their third-party administrators on operational issues, annual compliance requirements, and participant inquiries. We also regularly advise our hospitality clients on health and welfare benefit plans of all types.
Operations
With significant experience in almost every operational aspect of the lodging industry, we regularly counsel hospitality clients regarding all types of contractual agreements affecting day-to-day hotel operations.
Compliance
Working closely with our hospitality clients’ treasury and internal control functions, we develop client-responsive policies, procedures, and internal control and training regimes (both in-house and external); assist with risk assessment audits and internal investigations; and respond to regulatory and law enforcement inquiries.