Where governance, capital, and power intersect.

Corvian Partners advises principals and boards on matters where the outcome is consequential and discretion is essential – disputes, investigations, crises, and negotiations in which legal, political, financial, and reputational dynamics move at once.

The situations we are engaged in →

Sub Rosa, Supra Omnes

I The firm

The strategic layer.

Corvian is not a law firm, a management consultancy, or a public relations agency. It operates above and between them – holding the whole of a matter while specialist advisers conduct their parts of it.

The firm is engaged when circumstances become politically complex, commercially sensitive, or strategically deadlocked: when the legal position, the commercial position, and the public position can no longer be managed separately.

Every mandate is senior-led. The relationship, and the judgement, belong to the principal adviser.

II Practice

Five disciplines, one matter.

The firm’s position is sharpest where these intersect. Most matters arrive as one of them and turn out to involve three.

01 Dispute advisory Shareholder, partner, and counterparty conflict where control or value is contested. → 02 Regulatory strategy Investigations, licensing, and government processes that move on their own clocks. → 03 Crisis advisory Active events – assessed privately before anything is said publicly. → 04 Strategic negotiation High-value negotiations where the dynamic, not the documents, is the problem. → 05 Reputation strategy Standing protected through sensitive matters, not promoted after them. → How the firm is engaged →

III Situations

You will recognise the situation.

Corporate control & shareholder conflict A founding relationship has broken down. A majority holder and a minority bloc no longer agree on the direction of the company, or on who should run it. Positions on the board have hardened, advisers are multiplying, and each formal step now carries consequences for control, value, and reputation at once. → Regulatory investigation A regulator has issued notices, opened an inquiry, or signalled that one is coming. The board is divided on disclosure. Counsel is managing the formal process, but the matter is also a governance question, a market question, and – if it becomes public – a reputational one. Each of those moves on its own clock. Here the state acts as enforcer, and the subject is past conduct. → Crisis & reputation containment Something has happened – a cyber incident, an allegation against an executive, a story that is about to run. Information is incomplete, obligations are accumulating, and there is pressure to say something before anyone is sure what is true. The first decisions taken now will shape everything that follows. → Deadlocked negotiation A transaction, settlement, or commercial relationship that matters has stopped moving. Positions have been stated and restated. The other side’s constraints are opaque, your own leverage is being spent rather than preserved, and the cost of the impasse compounds every month it continues. → Family office & private capital disputes The conflict is inside the structure: between generations, between principals, between the family and the executives who run its capital. The legal questions are real, but they sit on top of relationships, succession, and identity – and the matter must be resolved without ever becoming public. → Government & policy conflict Government has become the counterparty. A licence is at risk, a policy change threatens the business model, or a decision is sitting with a department that does not move on commercial timeframes. The company’s case is strong on its own terms – but it has not been built in terms government cares about. Here the state acts as policy-maker or decision-maker, not enforcer: the subject is a decision yet to be made. →

All six situations →

IV People

Senior-led, without exception.

Mandates are conducted by the firm’s principals. No matter is delegated; no relationship is handed down.

–

William O'Halloran

Principal

Founder of the firm; leads its most senior mandates – contested control, regulatory conflict, and crisis – and is the final point of escalation on every matter.

–

Alexander Gunning

Associate

The primary operational counterpart to clients; directs the conduct of active mandates – diagnostics, situation framing, adviser coordination, and the discipline of execution.

About the principals →

V Insights

Recent analysis.

Regulatory · May 2026

Contact

Enquiries are received directly by a principal – and treated as confidential, including the fact of the enquiry itself.

How to reach the firm →

Where governance, capital, and power intersect.

The strategic layer.

Five disciplines, one matter.

You will recognise the situation.

Senior-led, without exception.

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