Eversheds is advising on the Combined Aerial Target Service (Cats) project, which will award a £750m contract for the provision of a global 'live' aerial target capability to the UK Armed Forces.
Eversheds won a place on the MoD's PPP panel for the first time last year (The Lawyer, 7 January 2002), shortly after hiring projects specialist Katherine Ibbotson who had worked for the MoD at Addleshaw Booth & Co. Now a partner, Ibbotson led the Eversheds pitch for Cats.
The MoD usually invites a mixture of City and regional firms from the panel to pitch for projects. The other panel firms are Addleshaws, Burges Salmon, Denton Wilde Sapte, DLA, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Masons, McGrigor Donald, Shepherd & Wedderburn, Simmons & Simmons, Veale Wasbrough and Wragge & Co.
Ibbotson said: “This is quite a coup for us and a really unusual scheme. There are always a lot of accommodation schemes around, but what's really unusual about this is that it involves a pure service.”
Eversheds has advised the Defence Estates on its portfolio in the past, but this is the first time it has worked so closely with the military.
