Bob Hoyt
BARCLAYS
Team size: 840
Major law firms used: Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy, Baker McKenzie, Clifford Chance, Dentons, Linklaters, Pinsent Masons, Simmons & Simmons, White & Case
‘We are increasingly ensuring our lawyers are more flexible.’
‘You don’t want a brain surgeon clipping your toenails, but you don’t want the foot doctor doing brain surgery either,’ Barclays group general counsel Bob Hoyt says of his legal function’s philosophy. ‘You get the right level of professional on the matter for a very good, competitive price. That’s the best we can do for the bank.’
The banking giant completed its final panel review in July 2018 ahead of a long-planned phasing out of formal reviews by 2021. As recently as 2012, Barclays had more than 1,000 external advisers worldwide, but that has shrunk to around 100 today, with the new model touted as replacing resource-intensive adviser reviews with an ongoing relationship management system.
Hoyt, who joined Barclays in 2013, says the function’s role is at its most basic about managing all of Barclays’ legal affairs. The team has grown to 840 internally, but the bank recently started tracking how many FTEs it effectively employs externally each year: a further 1,900. Hoyt views the overarching group as Barclays’ interchangeable legal workforce, while claiming the company’s legal bills have come down ‘very significantly’ in recent years. Savings generated are believed to run into the tens of millions of pounds.
‘We had the idea of finding out how many professionals around the world bill time to Barclays for legal matters,’ Hoyt comments. ‘I was surprised at how low the FTE workforce number was, but it’s an interesting number to play with and ask how you can manage that to be the most efficient workforce you can get.’
Hoyt says it is not all about reducing that FTE number, however, although the conclusion of legacy litigation matters, such as the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the bank’s £12bn fundraising at the height of the financial crisis, have inevitably helped bring it down. He says the demand for legal services is not within its control and not always bad – M&A activity or entering a new jurisdiction, for instance – and so his focus is on what he can control: how efficiently that is delivered.
‘If we get sued I don’t have an option to not defend the case. But how am I defending it? Am I using the right firm with the right qualifications? Am I using one firm or three firms? What’s the budget? How tightly are we managing it? How do I get the right result with the right professionals on the matter at the least possible cost?’
He admits the radical overhaul of working arrangements with dozens of major law firms has not been a comfortable journey for everybody, conceding the bank has not always got it right as well. Transparency and listening to law firm feedback have been two of the biggest lessons. The bank has also created a working group with its firms to improve the use of effective fee arrangements over hourly rates, while also looking at how long it takes the bank to pay its bills.
‘I am agnostic as to whether the work is done by a professional employed by Barclays versus somebody employed outside of Barclays. If something can be done at an equal level of quality but cheaper externally, then that’s where it’s to be done. That is why, even though our total legal cost has decreased year on year for the last five years, our internal headcount has increased.’
Michael Shaw
THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
Team size: 300
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters
‘We are increasingly ensuring our lawyers, save for where they absolutely have to be subject-matter experts, are more flexible and multi-skilled,’ says The
Royal Bank of Scotland GC Michael Shaw. ‘That includes focusing on their relationship and influencing skills, as well as technical.’
Litigation and investigations have dominated the workload of RBS’ in-house legal team since the financial crisis, but Shaw says that is slowly subsiding. Regulation, of course, continues to dominate, with ring-fencing, MiFID II and GDPR all proving big projects. The bank has also been restructuring to prepare for a no-deal Brexit and responding to regulatory reviews in retail banking.
Shaw, who joined RBS from Barclays in 2016, says that, aside from those major projects, the bank has been reorganising itself and focusing more on the digitisation of financial services. This has required a broader and more flexible approach from his lawyers and led to the creation of a gig-resourcing initiative a year ago: projects and pieces of work are put on a noticeboard for lawyers to volunteer to work on. ‘It’s a way of providing people with additional opportunities over and above secondments. It gives them a broader range of opportunities and experience.’
RBS completed a panel review at the end of 2018 and implemented its first-ever flexible-resource provider panel. That will provide additional resource to supplement external and in-house counsel, says Shaw, particularly as firms are providing fewer secondees.
Sajid Hussein
BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH (EMEA)
Team size: 150+
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, Shearman & Sterling, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
GC Powerlist regular Sajid Hussein heads Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s legal department in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Hussein, who is based in London, and his team provide legal support to global corporate and investment banking, as well as global markets, on a broad range of global transactions. This covers a range of businesses, including capital markets trading and origination, M&A, equities, rates, currencies and commodities, as well as regulatory, employment, litigation and insolvency issues in the region.
Hussein moved to Bank of America as associate GC in 2005, having started his legal career at Allen & Overy before joining Deutsche Bank in 2001. He retained his role following Bank of America’s $50bn acquisition of Merrill Lynch at the height of the financial crisis.
Regulatory change has inevitably dominated the team’s workload in recent years, while in 2016 it established an EMEA-based technology review team charged with exploring initiatives, new tools and technologies to benefit both the business and the legal team.
Major transactions the team supported include: Comcast’s $39bn acquisition of Sky; Unilever’s €3.3bn acquisition of GSK’s consumer nutrition business; and the second-largest deal in EMEA in the year to date, RWE’s sale of innogy to E.ON for approximately $74bn.
Hussein is also widely regarded for his work on diversity and inclusion initiatives. The in-house team supports Aspiring Solicitors, a programme that works with university law students from LGBTQ, BAME and socially disadvantaged backgrounds, providing lectures, mentoring and networking events. Hussein’s team also puts an emphasis on diversity and inclusion with its partner law firms, annually assessing them on their BAME and gender statistics.
Hussein comments: ‘We operate in a fast-paced environment, supporting the global banking and markets team on multibillion-dollar, cross-border deals. I am hugely proud of our team, who provide sound legal counsel to the business throughout EMEA.’
Simon Croxford
UBS (Investment Bank and EMEA)
Team size: 200 (700 globally)
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Baker McKenzie, Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Herbert Smith Freehills, Mayer Brown
‘We’re not a profit centre, but we certainly have to manage our department as if it were a business.’
Simon Croxford recently returned to Swiss banking giant UBS after 13 years at Barclays, where he rose to one of the most senior legal positions as GC of Group Centre Legal (effectively replacing then deputy GC Michael Shaw, now GC at The Royal Bank of Scotland).
Back at UBS, Croxford has taken the position of investment bank and EMEA GC, leading a team of about 200 lawyers. His team covers sales and trading, equities, fixed income, capital markets, M&A advisory, research, corporate transactions, regulation and legal documentation. UBS has various panels broken down by area of business and specialism using major firms in each of its key locations. A focus has been on insourcing more work where the team can more efficiently perform a legal task than external counsel.
‘The risks have changed. It’s important to continue to analyse, be flexible and agile, and make sure you’re not too siloed, because change is constant,’ Croxford comments. ‘If you’re a global investment bank that covers a lot of products in different areas, there’s always going to be something from a regulatory perspective at any given time that’s affecting a business or product or client relationship.’
Another focus has been the use of technology, as part of the legal function implementing a programme called Time to Modernise. Croxford says that is about ensuring the department is run like a business, using tools such as matter management to understand what teams are doing, when they have peaks and troughs, and the costs. ‘We’re not a profit centre, but we certainly have to manage our department as if it were a business. Part of this involves a greater use of technology to drive efficiency and change. A few years ago I’m not so sure legal departments knew what they wanted on the technology front and I’m not so sure technology providers knew what they needed to provide, but that delta’s converging.’
He also emphasises the importance of developing talent. That includes a mobility programme that gives lawyers exposure to different products, divisions and geographies, as well as an emphasis on diversity. ‘A lot of it’s about your talent; people are fundamental to what we do.’
Margaret Cole
PwC
Team size: 36
Major law firms used: Clifford Chance, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Norton Rose Fulbright, Taylor Wessing
‘You can’t be too lawyerly!’
You would have to go a long way to find someone in the City with the same breadth of experience as Margaret Cole. Prior to taking up the dual role of GC and chief risk officer at Big Four firm PwC in 2012, Cole was head of the Financial Services Authority’s enforcement and crime division, making her London’s top enforcer. Add to that a robust private practice career: between 1995 and 2000 she led the enterprising dispute resolution team at White & Case’s London office.
With this background, Cole has overseen a sea change in the profile of the in-house legal function at PwC. A significant amount of Cole’s lawyers are newly appointed, younger professionals with a background in technology. Some of them were even lawyers at legal tech start-ups. She argues this was necessary to keep up with the modern legal environment: ‘The areas of GDPR and cyber security are so important right now. Bringing in lawyers with a background in these areas becomes a necessary challenge.’
Like any of the major auditors, most of Cole’s time in 2018 was consumed by regulatory investigations. In recent years, notable probes have included two by the Financial Reporting Council, in relation to PwC’s auditing of both BT and BHS. Cole says: ‘We have an intense eye on the audit market. My background as a regulator enables me to look at the whole picture from different perspectives.’
Cole has a lot of responsibility at PwC, with the legal function, risk team and a corporate affairs team all reporting in to her. In this sense, Cole embodies a wider trend of GCs taking on responsibilities outside of a traditional legal adviser. However, she does not see this as a bad thing: ‘If you have a broad background when you become a GC, it naturally lends itself to not having your skills restricted to just legal risk. I sit on the executive board and I often find myself having to advise on all manner of things because of my background. You can’t be too lawyerly!’
Jeremy Barton
KPMG
Team size: 39
Major law firms used: DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Osborne Clarke, Pinsent Masons
‘We have no problem attracting recruits.’
Jeremy Barton, GC of Big Four firm KPMG, is one of the leading lights of the in-house community, offering regular insights on innovation and inclusion. On top of this, he has had to contend with a pressing 2018 for KPMG, with the firm heavily under the regulatory spotlight.
Among other investigations, in January 2018 it was revealed that KPMG was being probed by the Financial Reporting Council regarding an audit of now-liquidated construction firm Carillion. It is not the first and will not be the last piece of regulatory scrutiny KPMG will have to handle. Barton says: ‘It’s front and centre. My team is hugely focused on regulatory matters we are experiencing at the moment. We’ve settled a couple of important cases. It’s been a lot of effort.’
One of those settlements was a £3.2m fine paid to the FRC in June last year, over misconduct in the auditing of scandal-hit professional services firm Quindell. However, he disagrees that being under the constant magnifying glass of regulation is a distraction: ‘You could say that dealing with different problems is what we want to be doing! We don’t want the problems of course, but could you really call them a distraction?’
He has also managed to dedicate time in 2018 to re-assessing external legal advice. He uses Integreon and Lawyers On Demand for outsourcing and temp work, but is giving serious thought to employing a consortia of law firms to match his needs. Barton identifies a growing trend of a Magic Circle firm, a mid-tier firm and a New Law provider combining and pitching to clients as a team, and describes it as an attractive prospect. He has also been making changes internally, implementing a new flexible working policy that allows greater scope for lawyers to work from home, to further entice private practice lawyers into the in-house profession. He insists: ‘We have no problem attracting recruits.’
According to Eversheds Sutherland executive partner Ian Gray, Barton’s efforts have not gone unnoticed: ‘He has had a very challenging year due to regulatory change and is the most high-profile GC of all the Big Four. He continues to be very quick to identify positive developments in organising legal services and is equally as quick to identify negative developments.’
Mark Chapman
NATIONWIDE BUILDING SOCIETY
Team size: 55
Major law firms used: Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy, Eversheds Sutherland, Linklaters
According to Mark Chapman, GC and society secretary at Nationwide Building Society, it is ‘watershed time’ for banks in the race to keep pace with consumer appetite for digital services. ‘The challenge for us is how we stay relevant but true to our values as a branch network,’ says Chapman.
Chapman, a former Barclays UK GC, was appointed the society’s new legal chief in early 2018, taking over from Keith Ford. Chapman also became a member of Nationwide’s executive committee. Nationwide is going through a ‘significant’ period of growth, Chapman says. Last November, it pledged to shake the market up with the launch of a new bank account proposition for small firms in the UK.
While ensuring new products are legally compliant, Chapman and a team of 55 – with 15 staff also delegated to secretariat roles – need to ensure new products are also member-friendly. Last October, Nationwide kick-started a £3m fund to promote digital innovation in the finance sector for new services for customers struggling with personal finances. The company is also exploring the use of artificial intelligence technology in the legal department, with Chapman ultimately seeing the basics of the legal function replaced by automation and cheaper service providers.
‘We are here to support the company with product launches – there are other products the company wants to develop. Having made a big tech investment, the project for us as a legal team is into the technicalities around digital services like cloud banking.’
The company does not operate a formal panel but does have preferred advisers. ‘I’m interested in deepening our relationship with those preferred firms so it’s mutually beneficial and so they get to know our business.’
Catherine Johnson
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE GROUP
Team size: 50
Major law firms used: Clifford Chance, DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Lawyers On Demand, Radiant Law
A pioneering use of alternative legal providers has contributed to Catherine Johnson, GC of the London Stock Exchange Group, being nominated for this year’s GC Powerlist.
Johnson is the legal chief of a company that has seen explosive growth in recent times: going from having a £2bn market capitalisation to £14bn in just 14 years. As a result of this breakneck expansion, the in-house legal team has grown to number 50 dotted across the UK, US, France, Italy and Sri Lanka.
In order to keep up with the growth of the business, Johnson instructed her lawyers to form ‘partnerships’ with each strand of the company. She says: ‘The teams under my lawyers are cross-functional and cross-jurisdictional. But they all report back into a central legal function.’
She has also created a structure where there are few junior lawyers: the idea is that everyone in the legal team adds value and can readily contribute to management meetings. Johnson has an innovative solution to this focus on high-end work: she outsources entire high-volume aspects of the legal function to flexible providers like Radiant Law and Lawyers On Demand. Johnson’s theory is that high-quality work for the in-house team results in high job satisfaction. ‘The complexity of the issues that we have to think about, means their job satisfaction is very high. The turnover in my team is pretty low. I have been here for over 20 years and I will always say I have never done the same thing twice.’
David Fein
STANDARD CHARTERED
Team size: 600
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Baker McKenzie, Clifford Chance, Dentons, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells, Linklaters, Slaughter and May
Geopolitical risk – as well as the threat of trade wars – poses serious challenges to an organisation like Standard Chartered, which operates in 70 jurisdictions across the world from its head office in London. The company’s group GC David Fein oversees a legal team that is edging towards 600 staff.
Towards the end of 2018, he helped the company secure a banking licence for its newly formed Frankfurt subsidiary to help the business grow its EEA client base once the UK leaves the EU in March. Meanwhile, according to Fein, Standard Chartered requires its lawyers to be increasingly ‘tech savvy’. The business is gearing up to roll out online retail banking apps in four African markets in Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and Kenya in the first quarter of this year.
‘We’re always looking for ways to train staff about technology,’ comments Fein. ‘You have to be agile and flexible to respond to some of the challenges in this job.’
The company does not operate a formal panel but does use a global roster for transactions and disputes. The bank has brought more work in-house and has reduced the size of its panel, a move Fein says has been positive for the business. ‘The client is happier when we’ve invested in our legal function and it’s an important move for retaining our top talent and letting them know that they don’t have to be in a law firm to do well,’ says Fein. A ‘pretty developed’ people plan at the company has seen it set up a learning academy for staff to improve their legal banking knowledge, stakeholder engagement and even improve their writing skills.
Fein has spent half of his career in the private sector and half in senior positions in the US government. He was associate counsel to Bill Clinton at the White House before working as a partner at US law firm Wiggin and Dana for 13 years. He later returned to the government as an attorney for the District of Connecticut before joining Standard Chartered as GC, a position he has held for over five years now.
‘My role at the White House was less about giving advice and more about carrying out an executive function. In my current role, it’s about giving advice on a continuing basis and being engaged in the boardroom.’
Sonya Branch
BANK OF ENGLAND
Team size: 150
Major law firms used: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, White & Case
Patrick Sarch, corporate partner at White & Case, describes Bank of England GC Sonya Branch as his ‘number one’ selection for the GC Powerlist.
‘She keeps the world spinning on the right axis. She has an office a couple of doors down from Mark Carney, and is the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and thinks: “What I do matters.” She is working in the country’s best interests and of all people deserves some bigging up.’
Branch joined BoE as GC in 2015, a month after chief legal adviser Graham Nicholson retired. Since then, she has seen her in-house legal function inflate at the same rate as the wider business has expanded its remit. Upon arrival, BoE had about 90 staff. It now has around 150 lawyers, paralegals and support staff in the legal function alone.
Another major factor in this increase in headcount was oddly due to the 2012 Financial Services Act, which saw the dissolution of the Financial Services Authority. As a result, Branch estimates around 40 former FSA lawyers joined BoE in 2013. She comments: ‘Every institution has its own defining cultures. The thing that uniquely defines BoE is: “Never underestimate the power of the public mission that drives us all.”’
The first few years of her tenure were spent bedding in this rapidly expanding team, as well as giving the function a general shake-up. A flabby structure of nine legal units was streamlined to four and a separate ‘EU withdrawal’ division was set up. She also appointed two new deputy GCs in order to provide greater career progression opportunities. ‘There was no clear, structured career progression to the GC role for legal colleagues when I first joined, but I have since provided that path.’
High up the 2018 agenda was the looming prospect of Brexit, in whatever guise it may ultimately take this month. The in-house legal team was obliged to sift through around 10,000 pages of EU legislation last year to make sure preparations were up to scratch.
Needless to say, Branch has a demanding role, particularly when childcare responsibilities are added in. She concludes: ‘As a working mother, it is important for me to have a flexible working environment. The sense of public mission motivates me, as does working in a collegiate team which shares a value system I recognise.’
Hugh Pugsley
HSBC
Team size: 1,200 (75 in the UK)
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Addleshaw Goddard, Dentons, Eversheds Sutherland, Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright, Pinsent Masons, Simmons & Simmons
‘Getting up to speed with ring-fencing has been quite a task.’
For HSBC UK GC Hugh Pugsley, an appearance in the GC Powerlist marks the end of years of hibernation from the public eye enforced by a deferred prosecution agreement in the US and major structural reform. The five-year probe by the US Department of Justice concluded in December 2017 after the bank was forced to pay a $1.9bn fine – a punishment for lapses in anti-money laundering measures in relation to Mexican drug cartels.
Despite entering into a relatively smaller ($100m) DPA early in 2018, the end of the much larger investigation and the conclusion of the ring-fencing preparations allowed Pugsley and the HSBC UK legal team to refocus their priorities and go more public with their achievements.
Pugsley, who has led HSBC’s legal team since 2015, has received recognition this year for dealing with a variety of challenging internal and external pressures. From within, the legal function has sought to offshore voluminous ‘branch queries’, matters that Pugsley describes as ‘stuff that can’t be easily answered by the teller at the branch’. In addition to getting its own house in order, HSBC has also been driving extra value from its external counsel. ‘We’re more complex than other banks. We have a global panel and then also individual country panels. We’ve tried to slim down the UK panel to around ten firms.’ Among the select ten firms are Addleshaw Goddard, Eversheds Sutherland, Simmons & Simmons, Dentons and Pinsent Masons.
One of the key issues Pugsley had to navigate through in 2018 was the ring-fencing regulation that came into effect on 1 January 2019. He says HSBC’s ring-fencing provisions concluded in July, describing it as ‘the culmination of a three-year project for the whole group.’
‘Getting up to speed with ring-fencing has been quite a task,’ he says. ‘Lifting and shifting 17 million customers – and it had to be done without any of them really noticing a difference.’
Emma Slatter
VISA EUROPE
Team size: 60
Major law firms used: Baker McKenzie, DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Lewis Silkin, Linklaters, Pinsent Masons, PwC Legal
‘She has shown good leadership and has got the team working well with a lot of focus on what the business requires of them,’ comments Linklaters partner Tom Cassels of Visa Europe chief officer, legal and regulatory, Emma Slatter. ‘There is a clarity to her leadership, which is very impressive. Visa is very focused on values.’
The well-regarded Slatter, Deutsche Bank’s former head of strategy, replaced Niamh Grogan at Visa in early 2017. She leads a team of lawyers advising the UK and European offices on all aspects of their business.
Slatter spent more than 20 years at Deutsche in various roles, culminating in the global head of strategy role. Before that she was UK regional GC, leading a team of 150. In May 2016, however, she was reported to have left the bank to form her own consultancy advising on a range of business ventures. She arrived at Visa Europe shortly after it was acquired by US company Visa in a deal worth €21.2bn. Macfarlanes and US firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz advised Visa on the transaction, while Linklaters offered counsel to Visa Europe.
More recently in mid-2018, a host of British retailers won a Court of Appeal ruling against Visa and Mastercard in the high-profile interchange fees case. The case concerned charges made by the card issuers on payments by debit or credit cards in store or online. Sainsbury’s, Asda, Argos and Morrisons sued the card companies, alleging the fees were an unlawful restriction of competition based on EU law.
Kate Cheetham
LLOYDS BANKING GROUP
Team size: Around 300
Major law firms used: Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy, Ashurst, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, Eversheds Sutherland, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells, Linklaters
Kate Cheetham is a stalwart of the in-house legal community, and she features in the GC Powerlist again after another strong year. Unsurprisingly, Cheetham’s 2018 was characterised by a rising tide of regulation, hardly uncommon for a banking GC.
Her priority has been to comply with new ring-fencing regulation while having a minimal impact on customer experience. As a more straightforward retail and commercial bank than others, the requirements were less stringent. Nonetheless, a new, non-ring-fenced corporate markets bank was established. ‘We’re trying to ensure it’s the best it can be for customers and not disruptive for them.’
In the last year, Cheetham has been particularly vocal over how in-house teams and law firms alike can encourage innovative working practices. Lloyds Banking Group is piloting a chatbot that will allow the wider business to access legal solutions in a quicker way.
And while there is always room for improvement, Cheetham is upbeat about what her external firms can offer. ‘We use firms and alternative legal service providers to run the document collation and search functionality for litigation. We also use different types of firms for client documents and large data sets. Firms are getting better at thinking about how they are going to provide services differently going forward.’
Cheetham has been with Lloyds for over 11 years now, operating in a couple of different roles before becoming group GC in 2015. The consistent theme is job satisfaction. ‘I love my job. I have always thought it was a huge privilege to be in this role. I have done a number of roles since I have been here and I have found each one stimulating.’
On how to foster a productive workplace, she concludes: ‘It’s essential we create an environment where we have the confidence and courage to make difficult decisions and develop a culture of test and learn.’
John Collins
SANTANDER
Team size: 500
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Eversheds Sutherland, Hogan Lovells, Reed Smith, Slaughter and May, TLT
John Collins attracted headlines in December 2015 when he resigned from his role as the chief lawyer of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), a position he had only held for 11 months. He had replaced the well-respected Chris Campbell when he was appointed RBS GC in January of that year.
After starting his in-house career at Citigroup in 1995, Collins spent a number of years at the Dutch-based banking group ABN AMRO. In 2007, the company was acquired by a consortium consisting of RBS, Santander and Fortis. He then went on to become a key figure for RBS after the financial crisis, showing enough quality to be seen as the perfect replacement for Campbell.
At the time of his departure, one RBS lawyer lamented the loss, describing Collins as ‘trusted, very capable and a good guy.’ It is easy to see why – Collins presided over a 400-strong legal team as it concluded a $2bn US litigation, brought against a host of banks over alleged losses caused by the rigging of foreign exchange markets.
He has carried on living up to that billing since joining Santander as its director of legal, compliance, regulatory affairs and financial crime in 2016. Collins has overseen a landmark review of the bank’s UK legal advice panel, where in 2017 a host of firms including Slaughter and May, Reed Smith and Eversheds Sutherland were appointed.