Dwf Bt Legal Panel
While the outsourcing industry has experienced turbulent times in recent years, Mitie`s legal team has been at the center of its transformation as it has taken the storm to successfully refocus, reset and rebuild its business. The DWF global legal transaction has been appointed to BT`s new legal body following a competitive procurement process. Clifford Chance and Linklaters are among the companies that were removed from the last panel, and others, including Gateley and Eversheds Sutherland, also missed places. DWF said the deal was a “first for the company,” but declined to comment on its value or billing arrangements. The contract confirms the firm`s approach of “doing things differently” “by offering a comprehensive service offering that combines complex advisory capabilities with volume- and technology-driven legal solutions, complemented by non-legal services.” “BT is in a steady flow state and probably will be for some time to come,” Hart comments. “With that in mind, it`s now a full-time role to have someone dedicated to managing this change and ensuring the legal department has the right operating model and systems in place to keep up with the changing needs of the business.” The legal team played a key role as GSK and Pfizer combed through their respective consumer healthcare businesses to create a world-leading joint venture with total revenue of around £9.8 billion. The result has been a revamped structure that frees up its lawyers for strategic work – 84% of low-value transactions were handled by a 34-person legal litigation outsourcing team in Belfast and Wroclaw – and a 10% reduction in the total cost of the legal department for 2018/19 to around £70 million. A team of 43 employees covering insurance and real estate work has also joined DWF for this five-year, multi-million pound managed legal services agreement. BTG Pactual Colombia`s highly respected in-house legal team is led by Guillermo Quiroga Barreto, Head of Legal and General Counsel, and has been very productive over the past year. The path to the DWF took at least a year, during which 26 potential suppliers were evaluated before being narrowed down to a shortlist of four. These included traditional law firms, new legal players and the legal branches of the big four accounting firms, as well as “syndicate approaches” between suppliers operating in each of these areas.
This was coupled with what Chalmers saw as a larger range of legal service offerings on the market, and the transformation within the legal industry where companies had developed their own New Law-style businesses. Sabine Chalmers, general counsel for BT Group (GC), who joined the telecoms company just over a year ago, told Legal Business that she and her management team assessed how BT`s legal function provided services shortly after her arrival. DWF won its first major contract after the IPO after securing a five-year mandate as a managed legal services for BT`s insurance and real estate operations. NetApp`s legal function has also helped the company evolve beyond its unique product origins. Today, the company includes products and services, including a cloud company. One specific area where the company received broad legal support was to reduce a 70-page agreement on hyperconverged infrastructure consumption to a two-way agreement, thereby speeding up the time to close deals. The resulting transformation made BT the outstanding choice for this year`s award. The firm`s lawyers are now free for strategic work, with 84% of low-value transactions handled by a 34-person litigation outsourcing team in Belfast and Wroclaw. In addition, a 10% reduction in the total cost of the overall legal service for 2018/19 means that the number now stands at around 70 million.
GBP. BT unveiled its delayed legal panel and cut the list by nearly 60%. Everyone has an opinion about BT, which according to Chris Fowler, an experienced chief legal officer, has one of the most complicated stakeholder environments he`s ever worked in. “You have shareholders, customers. Changes to the company`s legal function have shown agility to respond to changes across the company. In 2018, BT announced plans to cut around 13,000 jobs over the next three years to save £1.5 billion in costs. A month later, CEO Gavin Peterson surprisingly resigned after five years at the helm. Throughout this period, the company`s legal function has adapted to these seismic changes in the company. Andrew Leaitherland, CEO of DWF Group, said: “We are proud to have been selected by BT as a strategic legal partner – this is a great recognition of DWF`s differentiated offering and our strategy to transform legal services. BT has partnered with global law firm DWF to provide legal support for claims and real estate. Led by Dan Cootes, Head of Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary of British Telecom (BT) Australasia, the Legal, Governance and Compliance team supports BT`s business in the region.
Up to 40 lawyers from BT`s in-house legal team of nearly 400 employees could switch from BT to DWF by the end of the year as part of the deal in which DWF was selected after a year-long process ahead of 25 other suppliers. In just three months of 2019, a small CCEP legal team navigated a series of regulatory and governance changes to complete an IPO that had never been attempted before: a transfer from Euronext to the London Stock Exchange. Sabine Chalmers, Group General Counsel, BT, said: “We are changing and simplifying the way we work at BT – building strategic partnerships will play an important role in this. Our agreement with DWF will allow us to continue to receive excellent insurance and real estate legal services while working with DWF, an innovative and growing legal company. The firm has reduced its legal panel by nearly 60 percent since its review in 2017. BT`s in-house legal department has undergone a seismic upheaval over the past two years. First, GC Group Sabine Chalmers joined anheuser-Busch InBev in April 2018, replacing the much-admired Dan Fitz. Then, the management team was restructured to reflect the shape of the company at large before finally unveiling a high-level managed services agreement with the new law firm DWF.
IBT has been operating in ten Latin American countries for more than 20 years. The in-house legal team helped the company weather economic downturns and recessions. The company said it had won a tender to become a “strategic legal partner” of BT. As part of the five-year contract, DWF will provide insurance and real estate services to its partner, and STAFF FROM BT`s internal claims and corporate real estate teams will move to DWF`s managed services practice this year. Fowler was tasked with finding the right partner for the managed services agreement and began defining the total cost of the BT feature – there is only one budget left for the legal department, up from six in 2017.