WINNERS

• 1st - Thomson Reuters
Slaughter and May corporate legend Nigel Boardman called last year’s merger between Thomson and Reuters the most complex of his career to date. The in-house team was instrumental in the creation of the first ever UK-Canadian dual listed company all the while dealing with antitrust investigations in 12 different jurisdictions.
A total of nine law firms and 34 in-house lawyers worked for almost a year on the complex £8.8bn deal. The in-house group had to get their heads round all aspects of the deal, covering legal areas from defamation to M&A.
To round off the challenging year of deals for the Thomson-Reuters team, they were called in to action to work on a series of billion-dollar outsourcing projects. The first was with BT for a new 100-country telecommunications network, which saw in-house lawyers Ed Rash and Sonya Forbes take the lead, while Kirsty Whitehead thrashed out a deal with Fujitsu Services to outsource the company’s IT infrastructure.

• 2nd - United Utilities
The past 12 months have been a period of change for United Utilities and its lawyers, who have been called into action on the £1.8bn sale of the company’s electricity network to North West Electricity Networks. It was a tricky deal and required complex negotiations over United Utilities’ pension plan. The company decided to continue servicing the network’s assets through subsidiaries, which led to the drafting of intricate contractual and regulatory agreements. With a new general counsel and plans to increase the trainee scheme, the United Utilities legal team looks set for any challenges in the future.

• 3rd - Which?
The Which? in-house legal team achieved a number of notable firsts in 2007, including taking a leading role in the first major consumer group litigation order (GLO) against JJB Sports.
The resulting settlement may have drawn mixed legal reviews, but the case moved the debate on GLOs into a new era. It also forced the litigation sector to seriously consider replacing the ‘opt in’ system with an ‘opt out’ system.
Which? has also taken a keen interest in the legal battle between the Office of Fair Trading and high street banks on unlawful overcharge fees, taking on an independent supervisory role to ensure the litigation is run fairly.
As a not-for-profit organisation, these high profile cases are often run on a shoestring with the in-house team reliant on pro-bono support from top firms.
Which? fails to be compromised by its budget restraints and continues to lead the way for consumer rights.

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Judges will be looking for evidence of:

• How the team has made the legal function integral both to the decision making process of the company and also to the overall company strategy
• Transactional work or regulatory advice
• How the spend for the team is managed

Submissions may focus on a single transaction or may chart the team’s progress over the course of the year.

Entries welcome from:
In-house teams	√
Nominations by private practice	√
Nominations by chambers / barristers	√

Previous Winners:
2007	Corus Group
2006	BOC Group
2005	National Grid Transco
2004	Benfield Group
2003	Innogy