Senior EDS in-house lawyer Emma Courtney has moved to Sun Microsystems to take the top UK legal job.

Courtney has been named UK senior counsel and will sit on the UK executive board reporting to the head of legal for global sales Leif Freykman.

Courtney succeeds Mark Curtis, who was the lawyer in charge of the UK, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Curtis stays at Sun but will focus on Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Sun has recently revamped its legal department and reviewed external counsel. Its policy is to find an in-house lawyer in another jurisdiction rather than turning to a law firm. Courtney has experience of working with a similar model during her nine years at EDS. She led the EDS team that recently won the £4bn Ministry of Defence IT contract (see page 10). Prior to EDS, she was Microsoft’s first lawyer outside the company’s European headquarters.