Legal Business

Chief adviser: Eversheds wins Specsavers preferred supplier tender

Following an extensive tender process, Eversheds has been appointed as preferred supplier for Specsavers across multiple practice areas.

Eversheds has secured a preferred supplier role advising on areas including UK litigation, employment law, and commercial and corporate issues including data protection, IT and supply chain.

High-profile work carried out by the firm on behalf of Specsavers included its five-year trademark litigation against supermarket giant, Asda, in which it fought to keep the trademark for its oval shape alone.

On choosing the firm as its preferred supplier, Specsavers global legal director Stretch Kontelj said: ‘We’re a global company with growth ambitions. Through the tender process, Eversheds showed that they were the firm to help us realise them. We were particularly impressed by the care they took to focus on our strategic priorities and how they would support these.’

Eversheds corporate partner James Travis who pitched for the mandate on behalf of the firm, added: ‘We’re immensely pleased and look forward to helping Specsavers in the next step of their remarkable journey.’

Similar mandates won by the LB100 firm included its high profile sole adviser agreement with Tyco International, a multi-million pound annual retainer where it provides the industrial conglomerate with all its ‘business-as-usual’ legal work across EMEA. That contract, which has been renewed several times, has evolved each time, underpinned by Eversheds’ Global Account Management System.

In May 2013, Eversheds was also appointed by Tyco spin-off Pentair Flow Control to take over all its routine litigation, certain intellectual property (IP) and commercial work and some premium work in the EMEA region.

This year also saw Eversheds land a spot on a seven-firm global panel created by US car rental giant Avis.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk