Lateral 4t — Legal Structuring for Aviation, Superyachts and International Transactions

Legal structuring for discerning principals and their advisors.

Lateral 4t advises owners, family offices and operating businesses across aviation, superyachts, film production, intellectual property and complex international transactions — drawing on three decades of practical industry experience as well as legal craft and delivered personally by a single senior practitioner.

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Aviation

Three decades inside business aviation. Advisory across the acquisition and disposal of new and pre-owned aircraft, finance and lease arrangements, transaction closing and escrow oversight, pre-purchase inspections, sales-agency selection, operational management, maintenance oversight, insurance and registration. Regulatory work spans the frameworks of EASA — including Part 145 maintenance organisation approvals and CAMO (Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation) — together with FAA and ICAO regimes and AOC (Air Operator Certificate) operation. Lateral 4t is also a registered Transacting User Entity (TUE) with the International Registry under the Cape Town Convention. The work throughout draws on the commercial and operational fluency that only sustained industry exposure can give.

— 02

Superyachts

A distinct practice serving yacht owners and family offices. Advisory work on ownership structures, registration, crew and operational arrangements, charter compliance, VAT and importation strategy and the legal architecture of sale, purchase and finance — informed by direct familiarity with how vessels are actually run and how transactions actually close.

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Film Production Services

Structural and contractual advisory for film and content production: guidance on the architecture of production vehicles, financing and co-production arrangements, talent and rights agreements and the tax-efficient frameworks behind a slate of projects. Grounded in practical experience of how productions are actually financed and brought to delivery.

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Intellectual Property

Strategy and structural advice for intellectual property assets — how rights are held, exploited and licensed across jurisdictions, how IP integrates with corporate and commercial structures and how value is preserved through licensing and contractual architecture. Current engagements include serving as Chief Counsel to Genuine Marketing Group (OTC: GMGZ), proprietors of the ZPTAG™ IBM Blockchain-integrated authentication platform — with applications spanning consumer goods, food traceability and the aviation parts custody chain, where forged Authorised Release Certificates remain a multi-million-dollar industry problem.

— 05

Complex International Transactions

Bespoke advisory work where conventional structures do not fit — cross-border commercial arrangements, resource interests and the matters that benefit from being approached from an unfamiliar angle. Three decades of working alongside principals and operating businesses inform what is and is not practical.

— 06

A single point of accountability.

Every engagement is led directly by the principal. There is no team to be passed between, no associate drafting in the background, no surprise on the invoice. What you receive is craft, three decades of practical industry experience and the standards of a city firm at the human scale of a chambers.

Tobi Mathews

"The right structure is rarely the obvious one. It is the one that survives contact with the people, the assets and the years that follow."

Tobi has spent more than three decades inside high-value transactions for individuals, families and the businesses they own — as adviser, as deal architect and as a sustained presence within the industries themselves. The practice was built around aviation and it remains the core of the firm, but its true subject is the architecture of ownership: how assets are held, financed, operated and eventually transferred.

The advisory work extends well beyond the strictly legal. Most engagements draw as heavily on commercial, operational and market judgment as they do on doctrine — the result of years actually inside the industries he advises on, rather than at one remove.

He works directly with principals and their trusted advisors. Engagements tend to begin with a conversation and end with a quietly executed transaction.

Based in

Jersey, Channel Islands

Practice

Lateral 4T Limited

Qualified

Law Society of England & Wales (SRA)

Registered with

JFSC (Schedule 2)

The same craft as a city firm — at the scale of a private practice.

Personal

Every matter is led by the named principal. The person you speak to is the person who drafts, negotiates and closes. Clients tend to remain clients across decades and across transactions.

Practical

The first structure proposed is rarely the final one. Time is spent understanding how the asset will actually be used, financed, operated and eventually transferred — before a single document is drawn. The result is a structure that fits the lived reality, not a textbook diagram.

Discreet

Confidentiality is not a clause but a working assumption. Conversations with principals, family offices and their advisors are held in confidence, in person where possible and without intermediaries unless invited.

Legal structuring for discerning principals and their advisors.

Five disciplines, one principal.