Senior members of Invensys' legal team – including the bulk of the UK corporate in-house group – have left or are set to leave the engineering and IT firm in the wake of this year's £3.4bn takeover by French multinational Schneider Electric.

The takeover has also led to the termination of a major contract held by Baker & McKenzie to carry out employment and immigration work for Invensys, Legal Week has learned.

A restructuring of the in-house team has led to the departures of a number of lawyers, including EMEA general counsel and vice president Caroline Hilton and associate general counsel Fiona Sandford, who oversaw the M&A and restructuring projects teams respectively.

Associate general counsel Bernie Hau, previously a solicitor at Dentons, is understood to be leaving the company at the end of the year, while senior legal counsel Louisa Monniot has also departed.

At the end of April, Invensys head of legal Victoria Hull agreed to step down from her role following the takeover by Schneider, one of the largest foreign purchases of a British company in the last year.

The deal saw Linklaters take the lead role for Schneider, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advise Invensys. Two sources said the restructured legal team – which is overseen by Peter Wexler, the US-based general counsel of Schneider – had yet to complete a review of its external legal panel.

However, part of that exercise has seen Schneider terminate a global contract between Invensys and Baker & McKenzie, covering all employment and immigration legal work for the acquired company.

Schneider has instead adopted its policy of working with preferred external counsel in individual jurisdictions for employment advice. Bakers declined to comment on the contract.

In its takeover documentation, Schneider said it had identified synergy savings of more than £100m a year following the acquisition. Two sources told Legal Week the in-house team's restructuring would result in gaps in legal knowledge of the Invensys business.

Schneider and Invensys did not respond to requests for comment.