Business Affairs

We also manage, draft, review and negotiate a wide variety of agreements including production and development agreements, talent and contributor rights agreements, digital media and distribution contracts.

We have consultants who have held senior in-house legal positions advising regularly on commercial issues which means they understand the importance of delivering clear, pragmatic advice focussed on helping your business manage risk – so you can focus on making brilliant content.

Our business affairs service is complemented by our commercial compliance expertise – helping brands, agencies, streamers, broadcasters and production companies achieve their commercial and editorial goals – and successfully navigating the rules across advertising, creative and editorial programming.

Reviewed & Cleared is owned and fully supported by Wiggin the award-winning specialist law firm which provide full support for development, production, financing, distribution, rights protection and M&A – and if you need specialist advice for wider legal issues – whether employment, property, or tax matters and as well as commercial support in complex areas such as data privacy and cyber security, Wiggin’s lawyers can help you.

Duane Dedman

Duane Dedman

duane@reviewedandcleared.com
Michelle Riondel

Michelle Riondel

michelle@reviewedandcleared.com
Susanna Speirs

Susanna Speirs

susanna@reviewedandcleared.com
Jane Clemetson

Jane Clemetson

jane@reviewedandcleared.com

Duane Dedman

duane@reviewedandcleared.com

duane@reviewedandcleared.com
Tel: +44 (0) 203 086 7708
Duane Dedman is an experienced broadcast compliance expert, having worked for UK-based broadcasters for over 16 years including UKTV, Sky and most recently at BT as Head of Broadcast Regulation.

Duane joined Reviewed & Cleared in February 2020 and brings his vast experience in helping brands, agencies, streamers, broadcasters and production companies successfully navigate the rules across advertising creative and editorial programming.

His specialism relates to commercial compliance: ensuring that brands exploit the rules to ensure they attain the maximum exposure possible within advertiser-funded programming, sponsorship credits and prop & product placement arrangements. Duane’s view is that there is still a huge amount of misunderstanding as to what can be shown within and around television and on-demand services.

Whether you’re a media agency pitching for commercial work, an independent production company wanting to co-finance your programme or a broadcaster wanting clear, upstream advice as to whether format ideas are viable, Duane can help you avoid the pitfalls with creative solutions that meet your brief and objectives.

Comments from our clients
“I have known Duane for a number of years now. He has a thorough grasp of the legislation around on-screen branding, audience engagement, undue prominence and the myriad of other rules which today’s producers need to understand in a constantly evolving landscape. We can work on instinct and experience, but there is no substitute for clear guidance based on fact and precedent. Money and time well spent.”

Lawrence Duffy, Managing Director at Aurora Media

“We enjoyed a 90 minute training session with Duane, covering product placement, AFP and Duty of Care. The presentation was very informative, clearly written and clearly delivered. There was also opportunity to ask questions and Duane gave well thought out responses and is very experienced and knowledgeable. I would recommend this training for lawyers, production management staff and also for executives to learn how to create more funding for their programming. Gave everyone the opportunity to think out of the box.”

Laura Bessell, Chief Operating Officer at Argonon

"We have worked with Duane at Reviewed and Cleared on multiple fast turnaround productions. We have always found him a pleasure to work with, his advice has been incredibly useful and supplied in a timely manner. Highly recommended!"

Hal Arnold, Head of Production at Little Dot Studios

Michelle Riondel

michelle@reviewedandcleared.com


michelle@reviewedandcleared.com
Tel: +44 (0) 203 086 7708

Michelle has over 15 years of experience working in media and sports law.

Her career began in London, as a trainee at Schillings, before joining Carter-Ruck’s media law team. During her time in private practice, Michelle worked on high-profile libel cases as well as advising on privacy, pre-publication and intellectual property matters. Many of her clients have included celebrities and, later on, a growing number of international sport professionals and clubs.

In 2010, Michelle moved to Switzerland where, in addition to sports commercialisation advice, she provides reputation management and media law/IP advisory services. Based close to the Olympic Capital of Lausanne, she has worked as Legal Counsel for the international sporting bodies AIBA (International Boxing Association) and FIH (Fédération Internationale de Hockey) advising on IP contractual and content related matters, including content clearance.

Michelle can be relied upon to deal effectively and efficiently with contentious media issues and regulatory issues, particularly in sport, and has built trusted relationships with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), international, continental and national sports governing bodies and distinguished persons working in sport.

Michelle joined the team at Reviewed & Cleared in 2021.

Susanna Speirs

susanna@reviewedandcleared.com

susanna@reviewedandcleared.com
Tel: +44 (0) 7795 084070
Susanna joined Reviewed & Cleared in November 2019 and is a highly experienced intellectual property and contracts lawyer, providing practical and commercial IP, title clearance and contracts advice to media clients.Susanna has a background in high-level IP litigation, having trained at Freshfields before moving to Field Fisher to work in their renowned IP litigation team, where she gained a wealth of experience in passing off, copyright and trade mark infringement claims and domain name disputes.Susanna has spent the last 11 years working in-house in a variety of senior roles, initially advising NatMags (now Hearst UK), on pre-publication matters as well as dealing with various privacy, defamation, contempt, data protection, IP and advertising standards issues. At Arsenal Football Club, she helped to set up the in-house legal team and, in this hugely varied role, managed the majority of Arsenal's contract and IP work, as well as working with Arsenal Media, the Premier League, UEFA and various high-profile footballers. Susanna has more recently worked at Unilever, both in a Senior Legal Counsel and subsequently General Counsel role, where she advised leadership teams in various parts of the business on both legal issues and strategy.Susanna has a very practical, risk-based approach to legal issues and is at home working closely with clients to resolve their legal issues on tight timescales. 

Jane Clemetson

jane@reviewedandcleared.com

jane@reviewedandcleared.com
Jane started working with Reviewed and Cleared in April 2020. Prior to that she was Commercial Legal Director at Reach plc.

She began her legal career with Slaughter and May in a company/commercial role, before working for Sony Music and subsequently starting her own consultancy, advising creative businesses of all descriptions.

Clients included ITN, Associated Newspapers, Trinity Mirror (now Reach), News International, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, The Racing Post, Sony, EMI, songwriters, artists, producers, book publishers, music publishers, computer games designers and cloud service and e-commerce providers.

She worked on a wide variety of contracts for the creation and exploitation of intellectual property and commercial contracts of all descriptions, including licensing contracts, supplier agreements, outsourcing, joint ventures, production and distribution of audio-visual content on all platforms, music, e-commerce, newspaper, book and magazine publishing, printing and distribution agreements and agreements relating to advertising (including ad tech), marketing and sponsorship.

Jane has experience leading the design and implementation of processes to standardise contracts and improve contracting procedures, including creating and refreshing template agreements, business terms and “playbooks” to enable digital evolution and solution automation.

Practical, pragmatic and pro-active, with a risk based approach, Jane delivers pertinent, focussed and strategic legal advice to tight timelines. She has extensive experience of the legal issues most likely to affect publishers and broadcasters.

Former clients have said of her: “Very sharp and commercially astute”. “Authoritative, listened to with respect and very well regarded in her field”. “Funny and affable, an unpretentious a source of humorous and shrewd insight and a delight to work with”. “Her strength of character, depth of knowledge and experience add serious weight to any argument and she has an uncanny ability to zero in on the key issues”.