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IT/Telecomms and E-commerce - case studies

Multinational telecomms company

Our pedigree in the PPP arena and our in-depth understanding of the role of ICT in the delivery of public sector services led directly to an instruction from a multinational telecomms company to provide specialist advice to a local council in the West of England. As part of the Government’s wider modernisation agenda, they wanted to exploit the possibilities offered by information technologies (including internet-based technologies) in order to improve customer access to local government services and to achieve efficiencies in the provision and delivery of administrative and transactional services.

The company has a large in-house legal capacity but its Legal Department felt that specialist input was required in connection with a number of key “structural” and technical issues. They were particularly keen to take advantage of Bevan Brittan’s skills and experience in the key legal areas affecting this Programme:

• The use of ICT to transform public services;
• The role of local authorities in joint ventures with the private sector;
• Long-term partnering in relation to ICT projects.

We worked with the Legal Team to devise a simple but robust joint venture structure in order to meet the potential needs of the Council. This was a particularly sensitive process as a number of interested parties had proposed a more complex structure which we believed could prove to be both unwieldy and expensive to administer. In developing the joint venture structure we had to take into account a range of differing requirements:

• The need to allow other local authorities to participate in the joint venture and/or receive services from the joint venture company;
• The need to allow for new ICT-driven projects to be adopted within the procurement and contracting framework;
• The need to be sensitive to employment and TUPE issues (and in particular to facilitate a “secondment” model)
• The need to ensure that the JVC would work within the legislative framework governing local authority participation in companies
• The need to devise a model which would not create unnecessary levels of bureaucracy (and cost).

Our input contributed greatly to the ability of the company to re-shape the Council’s thinking in many of these areas.

We also advised (and continue to advise) this telecoms company in relation to a number of other key issues which arise on major ICT and transformation projects, including:

• compensation on termination provisions;
• limitation of liability and software indemnities;
• TUPE issues relating to transferring ICT staff;
• “new projects” approvals procedures.

We were praised by the company for our pragmatic and insightful approach. The lead lawyer on this scheme said of the Bevan Brittan team: “I have never known such a responsive and incisive law firm and I've dealt with most of the players in the ICT space.”

For further information please contact:
Martin Carroll
Tel: 0870 194 1743
martin.carroll@bevanbrittan.com

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