Kingfisher has appointed a raft of firms to its global legal panel, with Eversheds Sutherland, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy (A&O) among 17 firms making the cut.

The FTSE 100 company owns a number of home improvement brands such as B&Q and Screwfix.

The panel covers work for Kingfisher and its subsidiaries in the UK, Portugal, Romania, Russia and Spain.

The UK panel consists of A&O, Bird & Bird, Clyde & Co, Eversheds Sutherland, Foot Anstey, Freshfields, Hogan Lovells and Womble Bond Dickinson.

The company's Portugal and Spain panel includes Cuatrecasas, Garrigues and Ortega Condomines Abogados.

The Romania panel will use local firms PeliFilip and Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersenand.

Kingfisher's Russia panel comprises Baker & McKenzie, Goltsblat BLP, Jeantet and Pepeliaev Group.

Kingfisher Group legal director Elizabeth Messud said: "Our legal panel remains a fundamental piece of our legal services offering to the overall Kingfisher organisation.

"Our new, streamlined, legal panel will allow us to develop better working relationships with each of the successful firms to ensure the delivery of high-quality legal services and to ensure we get the best value for our spend on legal services, from a core group of specialists who really understand Kingfisher."

Eversheds Sutherland London-based relationship partner for Kingfisher, Parmjit Singh, said: "Kingfisher is an impressively ambitious business. We hope the combination of our quality legal advice delivered seamlessly and consistently across multiple jurisdictions combined with our retail sector knowledge will be of great benefit to Kingfisher going forward."

In 2012, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hogan Lovells secured key roles to handle the group's major transactional work, major corporate and M&A work.

In 2016, Kingfisher GC Clare Wardle was named general counsel and company secretary at Coca-Cola European Partners.

Picture credit: Roger Cornfoot