Insurance giant Amlin has unveiled its first legal panel for group related work, appointing seven firms to advise the company on all its non-insurance related issues.

Linklaters has retained its place as the FTSE 250 group's lead corporate counsel, with Norton Rose and Ince & Co both newly-appointed to advise on corporate and regulatory and commercial and competition issues respectively.

Other appointments to the panel see Fox Williams chosen for employment work, with DMH for IP and IT, Stevens Drake for property and Wollastons selected for local work in Chelmsford.

Amlin's traditional insurance advisers Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, CMS Cameron McKenna, Dechert and Beaumont & Son all failed to make the new panel but continue to advise the company on insurance related work.

The review process was led by general counsel James Healy-Pratt, who report into company secretary Charles Pender and opted to set up a formalised panel system in favour a list of preferred firms.

He said: "We did have more advisers but decided to appoint less firms with more focus as it was a good idea to rationalise the work they were doing. We also wanted to get a balance of City and provincial firms for different types of work."

He added that the company is now planning to set up a panel to advise on its day to day product issues in its London market trading.

Amlin operates in the Lloyds market with overall syndicate underwriting capacity for 2004 at £1bn.

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