Nabarro acts opposite CC on 10-year outsourcing contract with EDS

Clifford Chance (CC) has won a mandate advising longstanding client Aviva on a £700m outsourcing contract with Electronic Data Systems (EDS).

The deal will see EDS taking control of Aviva's existing data centre operations in Norwich and then providing services back to Aviva.

As part of the deal, around 300 Aviva employees will transfer to EDS.

CC fielded a team under London outsourcing partner Andre Duminy, with tax partners Douglas French and Etienne Wong, employment partner Imogen Clark and real estate partner Tony Briam assisting.

The magic circle law firm worked alongside Aviva director of legal services, Tim Vickers, on the 10-year outsourcing contract, which was signed on 2 March after nine months of negotiations.

For CC, the deal is the firm's latest in a string of outsourcing mandates for Aviva. It comes in the wake of the firm's role advising Shell on last year's A$4bn (£2.79bn) IT infrastructure and telecoms outsourcing to AT&T, EDS and T-Systems.

Duminy said: "Outsourcing is not just about increasing flexibility for the customer; it is also a way of reducing fixed cost, sometimes substantially, as an alternative to simply taking an axe straight to headcount.

"Being able to integrate completely with the Aviva team allowed us to advise not just on legal aspects of the deal, but also on how to structure a contract that would deliver against the commercial deal objectives."