Legal Business Blogs

In-house moves: Glencore and RSA announce senior appointments

Glencore Xstrata has promoted former Glencore general counsel (GC) Richard Marshall as its overall head of legal in the wake of its $66bn merger.

Marshall joined Glencore in 2005, having worked at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. He moved to the firm’s London office from the Sydney office of Mallesons Stephen Jacques where he had been a partner since 1984.

Marshall will now head the legal and compliance team according to a Glencore Xstrata presentation document published on 3 May, which also promised a ‘capital-efficient business model’ following the merger.

Negotiations over the deal, which have taken 15 months, have seen Glencore secure the vast majority of senior appointments in the newly merged mining giant. Former Xstrata chief legal counsel Benny Levene has left the company after a period as a consultant.

In other client-side appointments, global insurer RSA has announced the promotion of Carl Blake to general counsel for Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Blake joined the London-headquartered RSA in February 2012 as part of the group legal counsel team, having previously worked as a senior associate in the corporate and M&A team of Clifford Chance.

He will now lead the RSA legal team within the CEEME region on a range of legal, risk and compliance matters.

Elsewhere, Iglo Group GC Anthony Barratt will leave this year, having joined from Telefónica’s O2 Airwave in 2006.

Private equity giants Blackstone and BC Partners made a joint €2.5bn bid for Birds Eye Iglo in June 2012, an offer rejected by Iglo’s owner, Permira.

A spokesman for Iglo Group said: ‘We would like to thank Anthony for the huge contribution he has made to Iglo Group over the past six years and we wish him well for the future when he leaves later in the year. We have begun a search for Anthony’s replacement.’

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk