Sage Group to hire new legal chief from Pinsents

Michael Robinson, an equity partner at the Leeds office of Pinsent Curtis Biddle, is understood to have accepted the legal role and will be based in Sage's offices in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Robinson joined Pinsents in 1987, after a four-year stint in the City at Linklaters. He specialises predominantly in corporate law, in particular in corporate finance and public offerings.
Sage Group's subsidiaries, which include Sage (UK) Limited, Best Software, Sage Inc (North America), Sage KHK (Germany) and Sage France, are run independently from the Group function.
Many of the subsidiaries have their own internal lawyers who report directly to their own chief executives.
Despite being a technology company, Sage Group has managed to weather the economy well and is in the lower reaches of the FTSE 100.
Sage Group's main European legal advisers are Allen & Overy, which it uses across the board, and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in the US.
No regional firms are understood to be on the group's legal panel and it is not clear whether the arrival of Robinson will pre-empt a review of this situation.
Sage Group and Pinsent Curtis Biddle declined to comment.