Image1\
Congratulations to all our winners
  
  
Thursday 9 February 2012 - Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London

Employment, Pensions & Benefits Team of the Year

  • Print

This award will be given to a team that can demonstrate exemplary performance in this area, either for an employer or for trustees and
employees. Nominees are invited to provide evidence of value-added
service in contentious, non-contentious or regulatory matters. Judges
will be looking for an innovative or pioneering example of work, a significant
new client win or superb service to an existing client.

Previous Winners:

Baker & McKenzie has proved its employment law credentials in a series of cases for British Airways. Although the firm has been working with the airline for ten years, it is the work that Evason and his team have done over the last couple of years concerning discrimination cases, holiday pay and staff cuts that has really stood out.

In November 2010 Bakers successfully defended a high-profile Court of Appeal action brought by Unite in an attempt to prevent a reduction in cabin crew staff at BA. The result of the case was crucial as it had a potential effect on the entire airline industry. That followed Bakers’ work over Christmas 2009 when planned strikes were ruled illegal by the High Court. The firm’s team proved that the claimants Unite had not taken reasonable steps to establish the identities of redundant employees who had left BA.

Many of these cases have proved to be groundbreaking for the airline and have shown that Baker & McKenzie is able to juggle a number of high-status matters with the same amount of tenacity.

HIGHLY COMMENDED

Ashurst
Caroline Carter

Ashurst was responsible for advising the board of WM Morrison Supermarkets on all elements of Marc Bolland’s move to Marks & Spencer at the end of 2009. Lead partner Caroline Carter was able to save the supermarket around £5m in unvested Long-Term Incentive Plans and bonuses that Bolland may have been eligible for.

Eversheds
Mark Fletcher

Considerable TUPE and change management experience helped the employment group at Eversheds pitch successfully on a tender to do HR work for Bradford & Bingley. The team then advised on the HR aspects of Bradford & Bingley’s merger with Northern Rock’s asset management arm under considerable time and budget pressure.

Hogan Lovells
Angela Dimsdale Gill

Hogan Lovells acted for the claimant trustee of the Pilots’ National Pension Fund on a scheme that affected the entire port industry in a key case for company pensions. The complex litigation for the case covered an industry-wide scheme and the result of the high-profile case has had a direct effect on approximately 1,700 scheme members and 53 harbour authorities across the UK.

LG
Helga Breen

Using the firm’s extensive public sector experience, LG’s employment team acted alongside the Office for Legal Complaints, the Ministry of Justice and counsel in an unprecedented challenge in the High Court by the Law Society. The case centred on creation of a new independent Legal Ombudsman scheme and LG’s advice was crucial in defeating the Law Society’s challenge.

Sacker & partners
Ian Pittaway

Noted for its impressive client base and experience in the pensions sector, City firm Sacker & Partners’ impressive record continued in 2010 with a number of new high-profile client wins, including the Bank of England and O2 Pensions trustees. Two key cases this year were acting for Transport for London in its High Court battle with the Pension Protection Fund and for HSBC in an asset injection worth £1.3bn.

taylor Wessing
David de Ferrars; Nick Moser

In a major international matter, Taylor Wessing acted for the Independent Trustee Services on a high-profile embezzlement case. The complex mandate included tracking and tracing money through a number of jurisdictions with 27 defendants. A series of successful judgments in the High Court mean that over £30m has been recovered for the client with freezing injunctions acquired for 25 of the defendants..