Innogy and Thames Water, the UK subsidiaries of German utilities conglomerate RWE, are to merge their in-house legal departments next month.
As part of the move, a new head of an integrated legal department will be appointed. Currently, Peter Taylor is the head of legal at Thames Water, while Caroline Fairbrother and Gary Chapman head up Innogy’s legal team.
Meanwhile, Mike Bowden, Innogy’s company and managing director of corporate services, will be promoted to
the post of managing director of shared services.
It is understood that the successful candidate for the
newly-created position will be selected from an internal pool.
It is not yet clear if or how the reorganisation will impact on the companies’ relationships with their external lawyers. Currently, Linklaters advises Innogy, which was acquired by RWE last year, and Slaughter and May advises Thames Water. RWE also has existing relationships with Allen & Overy and German firm Hengeler Mueller.
Bowden said a full-scale review of legal advisers was not being proposed, but added: “There will be some discussions. We clearly can’t have Linklaters and Slaughters acting in tandem.”
