Under new panel arrangements, London-headquartered Balfour Beatty has split its external legal spend into two areas: 'business as usual' retained work - which is predictable and recurrent - and other legal services such as complex litigation and M&A.

Exclusive work

According to Pinsents, all new business as usual work will be carried out exclusively by the firm while a limited panel of firms – of which Pinsents is a member - will act on complex and business critical legal work.
Chris Vaughan, chief corporate officer at Balfour Beatty, commented: ‘This move aligns with our strategic business intents and will bring benefit to both parties over the coming years.’

Breaking new ground

Alastair Morrison, head of client strategy at Pinsent Masons, added: ‘Pinsent Masons has historically done a mixture of both retained and business-critical work for Balfour Beatty and a key component of this deal is that our client is effectively incentivised to use us on complex and critical work in the UK and internationally. Balfour Businesses of all shapes and sizes have to respond to the new normal and we genuinely believe we are breaking new ground by offering a service which is not fundamentally based on the hourly rate.’
Balfour Beatty has been a client of the firm for over 35 years across a wide range of practice areas.