Information management company Iron Mountain has set up its first European legal panel, with Shoosmiths, DLA Piper and Eversheds among the firms making the grade.

Weil Gotshal & Manges and Squire Sanders Hammonds were also appointed to the roster last month, with the line-up also including Belgium's Lorenz Law, Germany's Schmalz Rechtsanwalte, Berthet Husson Associes of France, Netherlands firm Boekel De Neree and Benelux leader De Brauw 
Blackstone Westbroek.

Panel firms will advise the US-based company on matters including contracts, employment law, marketing and changing European legislation, with the roster set to be expanded to further European jurisdictions over time.

Iron Mountain UK and Ireland legal director Chris Thomas commented: "This is a very exciting first step forward in achieving our ambitions to receive superior legal expertise at the right cost and helping us make the most of emerging opportunities across Europe."

For Shoosmiths, the appointment is the latest in a number of new client wins for the firm's commercial team, including British Gas, and recent mandates from Volkswagen, Amazon and Thomas Cook.

Shoosmiths national commercial head David Jackson added: "As the economy has slowed down, we have managed to buck the trend by providing our existing clients with value for money and, as a result, they have been rewarding us with higher value transactions."

Iron Mountain provides information protection and storage services to more than 140,000 business customer accounts across 35 countries and reported an annual turnover of $3.1bn (£2bn) in 2010. Its systems are used by more than 95% of the Fortune 1,000 and over 85% of FTSE 100 companies.