Orange and T-Mobile set to review adviser line-up in wake of merger
Orange and T-Mobile have combined their legal teams and will kick off a panel review later this year in the wake of the telecoms companies' merger deal to create the UK's largest telecoms provider, Everything Everywhere. The new legal team contains 60 lawyers - 25 from T-Mobile, 35 from Orange - and is headed up by former T-Mobile legal chief James Blendis, who will take on both the general counsel and company secretary functions.
July 19, 2010 at 09:06 AM
2 minute read
Orange and T-Mobile have combined their legal teams and will kick off a panel review later this year in the wake of the telecoms companies' merger deal to create the UK's largest telecoms provider, Everything Everywhere.
The new legal team contains 60 lawyers – 25 from T-Mobile, 35 from Orange – and is headed up by former T-Mobile legal chief James Blendis, who will take on both the general counsel and company secretary functions.
Former Orange UK general counsel Alexander Lunshof has moved into a senior position in the legal team of France Telecom, Orange's parent company.
The team is split into five divisions: operational legal affairs, led by Sonia Bellamy (formerly of Orange); legal governance and compliance, led by Colin Caldwell (formerly of Orange); business legal affairs, led by Tom Speed (formerly of Orange), dispute resolution, led by Guy Perring (formerly of T-Mobile); and joint ventures and partnerships, led by Matthew Reading (formerly of T-Mobile).
The functions are split between the company's offices in Hatfield, Bristol and London.
Everything Everywhere is currently using the existing legal panels of Orange and T-Mobile. T-Mobile's main panel firms are Allen & Overy, Bird & Bird, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Eversheds, Hammonds, Kemp Little and Winckworth Sherwood, alongside barristers' chambers Monckton Chambers and Essex Court Chambers, which it instructs directly.
Orange's regular legal advisers include Baker & McKenzie, Burges Salmon, Cobbetts, Eversheds, Field Fisher Waterhouse and Olswang.
A panel review to create a single roster of advisers will take place later this year, with a reduction in the total number of adviser thought to be likely.
Blendis told Legal Week: "Both T-Mobile and Orange had a strong preference for retaining as much work in-house as possible and the aim would be to continue that approach with any panel review."
He added: "We have had success instructing directly to the Bar in the past and would be keen to continue working in this way with the larger group of internal lawyers."
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