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Apart from offering expert legal consultancy for local jurisdictions, CMS partners up with you to effectively navigate the complexities of global business and legal environments.

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CMS lawyers can provide future-facing advice for your business across a variety of specialisms and industries, worldwide.

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Offices
Global Reach
Global Reach

Apart from offering expert legal consultancy for local jurisdictions, CMS partners up with you to effectively navigate the complexities of global business and legal environments.

Explore our reach
Insights
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Data Centres

A proper understanding of real estate and landlord and tenant issues is integral to any data centres business. Our market-leading real estate team has been advising investors, developers, occupiers and funders in the data centres sector for over two decades.

The CMS real estate lawyers work seamlessly with data centre specialists in our planning, construction, power, sustainability and tech teams, ensuring that we bring to your transaction a deep understanding of the sector’s unique characteristics, sensitivities and challenges.

Sector expertise

We advise on a range of transactions on the various aspects of data centres, both through direct and indirect investments. Our long standing relationships demonstrate our commitment to our clients. We have worked with many real estate clients (such as fund managers, funds, insurance companies, pensions funds, property companies and private investors) for many years, and are renowned by the breadth of our client work. During that time we have witnessed:

  • the evolution of facilities from “sheds with power” to truly bespoke, occupier-led designs;
  • increasingly sophisticated contractual arrangements to protect the interests of the end-user – step-in rights, options, rights of first offer and first refusal;
  • the globalisation of legal concepts and documentation, as the hyperscalers have sought to impose consistency across their worldwide portfolios;
  • the rise of sale and leasebacks as financial institutions and enterprises look to consolidate and outsource their data centre requirements;
  • the ever-increasing influence of ESG compliance, as the data centres sector comes under increasing public and political scrutiny;
  • the transformation of the sector into a truly investible asset class.

CMS has one of the largest and most experienced multi-disciplinary Real Estate Groups in the UK with over 300 lawyers and is recognised as the leading provider of real estate legal services, holding an outstanding 24 Band 1 and Tier 1 rankings (England and Scotland) across the legal directories. Our sector specialist teams advise across all asset types, including data centres. 

We expect these trends to continue and accelerate.

Our experience in Data Centres

Our multi-jurisdictional experience and interdisciplinary approach is anchored in our expertise in the following areas:  

See our recent experience

Events

  • Scenic of panorama view of sunrise skyline and cityscape with light tail on road into metropolis, Bangkok, Thailand
    United Kingdom
    24 Apr 2025

    Cross-Border Financial Services 2025 webinar series

  • United Kingdom
    07 May 2025

    On the Pulse webinar series 2025 - Spring/Summer

  • colourful circles and sectors
    United Kingdom
    29 May 2025

    CMS Scotland In-House Essentials

  • Stacks of purple gambling chips 840x420
    United Kingdom
    06 Jun 2025

    CMS Gambling Conference 2025

  • United Kingdom
    11 Jun 2025

    Power Sector: Managing Risks

  • Abstract green spirals - 840 x 420
    United Kingdom
    11 Jun 2025

    Risk Essentials: Conduct issues for in-house lawyers: new SRA guidance and beyond

  • United Kingdom
    12 Jun 2025

    Supply Chain Issues in the Food and Drink Sector

  • Game Controller
    United Kingdom
    17 Jun 2025

    Gaming Risk – Roundtable Discussion

  • Colorful donut background - 840 x 420
    United Kingdom
    25 Jun 2025

    CMS Consumer & Retail Conference - Navigating through change

  • Ink in water abstract background - 840 x 420
    United Kingdom
    22 Sept 2025

    Skills For Future Facing Teams: How to maximise your ability to deep work in a world of distraction

  • modern office building with facade of glass
    United Kingdom
    25 Sept 2025

    Digital In­fra­struc­ture & Data Centres - Key Market Trends

  • modern office building with facade of glass
    United Kingdom
    21 Oct 2025

    Residential legislative update

  • modern office building with facade of glass
    United Kingdom
    26 Nov 2025

    Reform of commercial landlord and tenant legislation for England and Scotland

Local market knowledge. Global outlook

We provide future-facing legal advice to help your organisation thrive. Combining local market knowledge and a global perspective, and with lawyers in locations worldwide, your organisation benefits from the expertise it needs, even across borders.

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