Lovell White Durrant advises Barclays on its sale of BZW

Barclays used its principal lawyers Lovell White Durrant to advise it on the controversial sale for only £100m of part of its troubled merchant bank arm BZW to Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB).

Barclays group general counsel Howard Trust assisted by two other in-house lawyers, Rachel Harris and Mark Edwards, led and co-ordinated Barclays' legal team, while partners David Harris and Hugh Nineham led for Lovells.

Clifford Chance's head of corporate David Childs advised CSFB, with CSFB's in-house team led by Stephen Greene who was assisted by Lee Goss and Marcel Scheiner.

CSFB is buying the European equities and corporate advisory part of BZW and leaving the derivatives side.

Both sets of lawyers had to move fast when Barclays announced at the beginning of October that it was restructuring BZW, reaching agreement to the sale on 12 November.

Childs said there were complex issues to resolve in splitting BZW into the parts that would be staying and the parts that Credit Suisse would be buying, and in the mix of assets and shares that were being sold.

Barclays has been criticised for committing to the sale before it had firm offers, leaving rivals to cherry-pick staff and exposing it to the risk of having to accept a lower offer.