Siemens hands UK panel spots to firm trio as roster cut
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Siemens has given new panel places to Eversheds and Osborne Clarke as the engineering and technology group completes a major slimming-down of its UK legal roster.
Claire Carless
The two firms join Reed Smith on a three-firm panel that has been cut down from six, with no fixed term for the appointment confirmed.
Addleshaw Goddard, Midlands firm Hill Hofstetter, Manches, Pinsent Masons and Watson Farley & Williams were all previously on the panel but do not appear on the revamped list.
Siemens approached firms in the autumn and received submissions in around November for the panel, which covers a range of practice areas.
In a statement, the company said that by halving the size of its UK panel it aimed to develop deeper relationships with firms and “engender a better understanding by the panel firms of the Siemens businesses”, as well as improving value and efficiency.
It follows the appointment of UK and north west Europe general counsel Claire Carless from Vodafone last year (6 March 2012).
Carless said: “We’re looking forward to working with our new panel firms to deliver world-class legal support, and innovative legal solutions, to Siemens in the UK.”
She heads a team of over 80 lawyers and contract managers and six compliance staff in the UK. The department is aligned to Siemen’s four business sectors, energy, healthcare, industry and infrastructure and cities, and works with cross-sector businesses such as the financial services arm.
Siemens, headquartered in Munich, also has a global panel operating out of Germany. Firms that have advised the company in the past on a global basis include Clifford Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, with Linklaters recently winning a first-time M&A role for Siemens on its acquisition of its £1.7bn acquisition of UK engineering group Invensys’s rail division (28 November 2012).
