Anna Williams

Anna is a Partner within Osborne Clarke’s media team who co-leads the UK's dedicated Advertising, Marketing & Sponsorship team. She is an advertising, marketing and sponsorship specialist, recognised in both Chambers & Partners and Legal500. Anna provides advice on a range of regulatory, contractual and intellectual property issues within the advertising ecosystem to a number of well-known brand owners, media owners and advertising agency clients within the advertising, digital, retail and media sectors.

Anna regularly advises brands in a range of sectors, including food and drink, financial services, and digital services, and has a particular focus on the Retail & Consumer sector, leading Osborne Clarke's UK Fashion, Luxury and Cosmetics subsector. Anna also co-chairs Osborne Clarke's International Greenwashing and Green Claims team of experts - created due to the increased importance that clients are not accused of 'greenwashing' when presenting their ESG credentials to their customers, partners, investors and others, and the regulator spotlight on this topic currently in multiple territories.

Anna has a wealth of experience from over 20 years of providing specialist advice on a range of advertising and sponsorship projects to key Osborne Clarke clients. She has a track record of advising on a range of commercial contracts relevant to the advertising ecosystem, including the negotiation of client/agency agreements, talent agreements, sponsorship agreements and co-branded collaboration agreements. She also advises clients on all aspects of intellectual property licensing, prize and price promotions, digital marketing, advertising clearance and brand exploitation issues, as well as advising on the innovative use of technology within advertising. Through co-chairing Osborne Clarke's international Greenwashing and Green Claims workstream, Anna is advising a number of international clients on the making of compliant green claims and the compliance processes they should have in place to mitigate the risk of their ESG claims being alleged to be greenwashing. Anna advises on the construction of claims as well as dealing with regulator investigations into alleged greenwashing.

Before joining the Osborne Clarke media team in 2004, Anna was an in-house lawyer within the Vodafone Group business.  Her role required her to advise the Vodafone group companies on a range of intellectual property and commercial matters both on a local and global scale. She provided advice in relation to Vodafone’s corporate sponsorship activities, advertising campaigns, joint collaborations with other companies, music and content related activities, and the exploitation and protection of the Vodafone brand.

Anna is a regular contributor to Osborne Clarke’s marketinglaw blog and acts as Chair or speaker at many Osborne Clarke and external conferences that focus on advertising and sponsorship issues and issues affecting the media sector. Anna is also a Partner Champion for Osborne Clarke's focus on D&I issues impacting employees who have, or are planning to have, family responsibilities or who have wider caring responsibilities.